


A Little Farther Down the Line

by Ayes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dating, Diary/Journal, F/M, Legal Drama, POV Sandor Clegane, Past Abuse, Past Joffrey Baratheon/Sansa Stark, Past Rape/Non-con, Prison, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 05:49:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 44,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayes/pseuds/Ayes
Summary: Sandor Clegane is serving his time as quietly as he can. It's not until he finds a mysterious girl’s diary in the prison library that he forges a connection to the outside world — but loving Sansa Stark comes with heartache and violence, even from the pages that connect him to her.And when he gets out, she's nothing like he expected.Slow-burning romance, with angst, hope, and a small side of plot. Title comes from the Johnny Cash song Folsom Prison Blues, because calling it "Dear Diary" was just too lame. Includes prison justice, truth or dare, driving lessons, and secrets.*******NOW SEEKING A BETA to help me clean this baby up. Message me here or on Tumblr (sayesayes)!*********





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Cover](https://i.imgur.com/ZXsEmgs.jpg)   
>  [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/1252977635/playlist/5fTGg9nTta2fvfIVzcwtI0?si=yZAqA41ZR9erHQ7mXv90dw)

Most people came to the prison library to get away from the yard. And their cell, of course: the cells were monotonous, unending. Most left as often as they could, to pace the yard together and smoke contraband cigarettes and do jumping jacks out in the blinding sun. The ones who didn't go out there were the loners: those too weak, too pasty-bellied to brave the cliques outside, their occasional arguments and random violence. Mostly the library-dwellers looked like the librarian Sam; they were chubby, too-smart. Most of them had been pinched for illegal trading and embezzlement, white collar stuff. Sandor wondered if the library reminded them of their college days or something, but he didn't know anything about that himself. He was the odd man out as far as being in the library was concerned. Prison, he fit right in.

With his solid muscles and his height, the way his torso tapered like a triangle sitting on its head, how his arms betrayed every push-up he did in his cell, he looked like he could run the entire yard. He'd thought about it, when he came in - his friend Bronn had insisted that he should become “head bitch,” as he had elegantly put it, but ultimately Sandor saw his sentence as a time out on life, on trying to be the toughest. A pause in the shit he'd been living to rethink things in peace. And so he'd gone to the library, and he'd started to read.

Sam had even become a friend, of sorts - as much they could be, with one man imprisoned and one working for the imprisoner. They didn't usually let it get in the way, though, and Sam had been invaluable in helping Sandor dig up business plans, reference books, and the occasional Stephen King novel.

Today Sam was busy overseeing a book club, five grizzled old men discussing Milton in a corner, and Sandor was alone to browse. He normally sat in a corner, just where the lights flooded in from the sterile window painted shut overhead. He'd smuggled a few Cokes into the library and hidden them under the long-defunct radiator against the wall at his back, the cool of the outdoor wall keeping them ice-cold in the winter and bearably not-warm throughout summer. It was the closest he'd come to creating his own space, and like a bar or a church, it felt familiar.

He'd been working his way through a short but dense book about forming an LLC, but put it down when the weak light hit his face. Sandor tipped his head back a little, the only little moment of enjoyment he dared to show, even in this corner of privacy. There were bad people all around, and with his brother and father the way they had been, he was used to hiding emotion from them. 

After a moment he stood and stretched. He rolled his shoulders back, down, and twisted on his feet. Maybe there was another book he could find, something light for once. Sam had mentioned a new round of donations he'd begged off a friend of his: maybe he could snag something fresh. It was Christmas morning when a new Louis L’Amour or tattoo magazine cropped up. He found the cart behind Sam’s desk, and paged through it before Sam could come back and tell him off for looking before they'd been filed properly. If he saw something worthwhile, he could at least ask to take it out first. 

No glossy magazine filled with hot girls or tawdry romance novels were in the new jumble of books, though. Whoever had donated them was a classy fucker - a law student, from the look of it. Old textbooks were always popular, and this round of donations had a ton alongside stacks of classics. There were also a surprising smattering of young adult books, things an introverted teen girl would read over the summer. Babysitter’s Club. Something called Pretty Little Liars. Some of it his sister would have read, and he wasn't sure why someone had included them in the lot. 

Underneath the sleek girly books, his hand caught on a new material. It was leather, and _of course this lawyer fuck with a teen girlfriend had leather bound books, what an asshole_ , but when he checked the cover it was blank but for an engraved wolf head. No title to give away the words inside, so Sandor slipped it open to a middle page.

It was a diary.

The YA books made sense now; the diary had precise, girlish writing, interspersed with ticket stubs and the occasional taped-in Polaroid. One was of a jumble of children, crowded into the edge of a pier at the very peak of summer. He flipped past one of a handsome young man, flanked by two beaming parents at a graduation. A page after that, a girl’s self-portrait stood alone.

Bright, bright hair, red as a jewel. Steady eyes, older than he'd been assuming. And an expression that so arrested him, Sandor looked all around, certain that someone was staring. But it was just the girl: her soft smile undermined by a mournful steeliness, the out-of-body gaze that only came from some horrible inner sadness. 

She was utterly, tragically beautiful. Sandor hadn't seen a new woman in nine months, prison nurses aside, but her beauty didn't come from rarity. Or it did, but in another way: she was singular, so compelling on the page that it took him another moment to realize that it wasn't a self-portrait, not really. Because on one side of the redhead, a pair of shoulders indicated a young man off-frame. Now he could see that an arm had slunk in as well, looped loosely around the girl's waist in a near-missable embrace. But Sandor was paying attention now, and he noticed every detail. Like how the casual hold became tight where the boy’s fingers gripped her.

Someone dropped something behind him, or shut the door, and the noise startled him into motion. He tucked the book into his shirt and went back to his corner, sure that the uncategorized diary wouldn’t be missed. Sam would probably just toss it, since it couldn’t go into the collection, anyway. Those excuses were easy enough to make, but he wasn’t quite sure why he’d taken it, except to prevent being caught reading some young girl’s diary.

Sandor slid back into place on the floor, folding and unfolding his long legs until he had the cover hidden away behind his knees. He probably wouldn’t read much of it, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I really like to do these short chapters so I can keep rolling them out as inspiration hits. It takes me a LONG time to write long chapters, and a short time to write short chapters, so I hope it's not jarring to get it a little bit at a time!

Before Sandor knew it, he’d spent hours reading a strange girl’s diary.

He’d never been much of a reader before coming to prison. In what he still thought of as his real life, he went to the gym, went to work, and spent his evenings drinking beer with his one friend Bronn or just his dog — Stranger, a huge black mutt who had been the only soul he missed so far. Stranger was staying with Bronn, luckily, and so on the inside the only other thing Sandor had missed was the beer. He could still work out in his cell and he didn’t miss his job as a longshoreman much, but boredom had driven him to the library quickly. It was the only way to avoid pod drama, staying “in the cut” or hidden away, from the guards and populace in general. And this little corner of the library had become his sanctuary. It was the place he’d first discovered decades of comic books he’d missed out on, and then dipped a toe into some classics. He’d finally finished the books he’d left behind with high school, and found them sinking into his heart and mind with nothing to distract him like there had been at sixteen.

But nothing compared to the diary.

At once he could tell that it had been kept at a time when the writer had no one else to talk to. She seemed to be living away from her family, apparently with the boyfriend who loomed over her unseen in the Polaroid. She wrote about missing people named Rickon and Bran and particularly someone named Arya, who she seemed surprised to be so lonely without. The loneliness was palpable from the page: sometimes she would just describe what she’d watched on TV, the way she’d rearranged her closet that day, what she’d eaten for dinner. There was a trapped feeling to it that he could relate to, and he found himself soaking in her descriptions of the mundane as though they were a lifeline to another reality.

There was a lot that wasn’t in there, though. He could sense the spaces between the lines: the way she missed her parents but never seemed to speak to them, the way she wrote carefully about what a wonderful boyfriend she had. 

_Dear Diary_ , one entry read, _I know Joffrey was so sweet once and I believe he can be so again. I’ll never forget the flowers he gave me, the way he held my hand and the door, the way he beat me to the check and showed me off like something precious. We can get back to that. I love him enough to try._ And then she went back to talking about clothes, what she’d worn, but it felt like a deliberate exercise in steering away from those first feelings.

He didn’t know who the girl was but he already felt protective toward her. Sandor knew a bit about being scared of his loved ones, about the hold they could have on you, whether or not it resulted in violence. His own relationship with his brother certainly had.

Gregor Clegane, three years Sandor’s senior, was the worst thing that had ever happened in Sandor’s life. From day one he’d grown up alongside an aggressor, someone who tormented him every time their mother’s back was turned. Once their mother died, it felt like they never saw their father, a workaholic, anymore. Gregor stopped going to high school and started filling the house with sketchy people, whose drugs and guns and parties ran over Sandor’s house and life until he’d gotten desperate enough to move out. But Gregor had followed, and by then it was too late. The struggle to escape his remaining family had hurt Sandor deeply, and that was before the incident.

This girl loved her siblings, though — the family she so pined for was clearly tightly-knit, clearly ideal in every way. Why she didn’t or couldn’t simply return to them baffled him. Here was a girl who was clearly writing out of pain, boredom, loneliness. And yet she wasn’t writing much of anything at all. She really did seem… stuck. Just like him.

The next time someone dropped a book, Sandor started like a wild hare. The sound reverberated through the spartan room, and in reaction he shoved the diary up under his shirt, pressing it up against his racing heartbeat. Looking through the diary had seemed innocent enough a moment ago, but now his prison instincts were kicking back in. He didn’t want to do anything to catch more time. He was halfway done: something stupid like this wasn’t worth it.

And yet he didn’t pull the diary back out when he realized no one was coming. Instead he stood slowly, stretched to cover his actions as he slipped it into his waistband, and started heading back to his cell. Sam gave a distracted wave as he left, and Sandor nodded, feeling vaguely guilty. He’d have to hide it, of course. Getting caught with the diary in his cell would be worse than getting caught with it in the library. But if he was going to keep reading it, and for some reason he knew he was, he’d have to finish in privacy.

The long grey walk to Sandor’s bed was a depressing one, but for once he had something else on his mind. He barely took in the right angles of concrete, the worn-out places where the floors changed color, the sepia tones that took over every eyeline until everything you saw looked like it was from 1970. He passed one or two other inmates, but ignored them as they scuttled away. Everyone knew each other’s charges in here, as well as the rest of the story. Sandor may not have been charged with murder, but he’d sure as hell done it, and most folk stayed away.

His cellie was out in the yard, so Sandor propped himself up in bed and drew his knees up to hide the diary from anyone walking by. Just having a taste of someone else’s mind felt freeing, like having a fresh conversation with someone who’d never been near a lockup. He wouldn’t call the writer innocent, necessarily, but she certainly seemed less cynical than Sandor himself. She spoke of happy days past, her hopes for the future. Her boyfriend seemed to be named Joffrey, from what he could tell, and she seemed to have some starry-eyed ideas about him changing and becoming a father. As a cynic, he doubted you could change a man, but this girl certainly seemed to wish for it hard enough.

He flipped back to her Polaroid, squinting into cool blue eyes. How old had she been? Nineteen? Twenty? It was impossible to tell — her skin was clear and bright, but her eyes belied an old soul.

 _Dear Diary_ , another began,

 _Cersei took me into town today. She says my dad called her and they agreed I should stay through the rest of the summer, but I don’t know why my dad wouldn’t have told me first. Of course Joffrey wants to spend the summer together, and I’m happy to be here, but if my family wants me here too I guess it’s decided. I hope they’re doing okay. Jon should be almost done with school now, and I hate to think of the family without me. But Joffrey is my future and I’m going to honor my commitment. I just wish_ — here the writing scribbled out, only to resume again a line later, as if after a pause.

_I can’t wait to have dinner with Joffrey tonight. We’re going to a restaurant with a view of downtown. I will wear my apricot dress with coral heels, the ones I wore at his last birthday. I used to think that coral would clash with my hair, but I saw a redhead in a movie wear a coral blouse and it looked beautiful. That might be too much for me, but I like the shoes, because then it’s more of a detail and not the whole outfit._

And so on. The diary seemed to be her only outlet, and yet she couldn’t spill her true thoughts inside. Even for a man sentenced to five years, it seemed like a sad lack of freedom. 

Sandor shut the diary, determined to savor it in sips. Spending time with someone outside of this place felt good, even if it wasn’t a true conversation. 

He’d have to find a hiding place if he was going to keep it. Bed checks were frequent and often unexpected, but Sandor knew some guys had stashes, everything from porn to handmade shivs to the occasional joint. Surely he could hide a book.

Sandor took a look around, assessing his square of the earth. The cell was cold but bright from the fluorescent light above, no sense of time anywhere but the small, rectangular window on the back wall. His bed was on the bottom of a two-man bunk facing a blank wall of nothing, a door to the hallway that locked at night. He was too tall for the beds, and even curling up, his feet often stuck out. That wasn’t why he’d gotten the bottom bunk: no, he’d been lucky enough to grab that when his last bunkie had caught chain. 

A horrible thought struck him. What if the girl was dead? What if the diary had only been donated because all of her things had been dumped in a bin post-funeral? Maybe she’d never reunited with the family she missed. Maybe she’d been stuck with some dumb young asshole until — had he killed her? The possibilities raced through his mind — after all, he’d been conditioned to expect the worst and was surrounded by worst-case scenarios every day.

He flipped to the back of the book. The last dates were recent, within the last few months. That settled his stomach. She had been alive as recently as the spring, when it had rained and rained. Maybe she’d just donated the diary by accident. The back few pages were smooth and blank, but that supported his idea of it being accidental: no one would donate a diary they were still keeping on purpose. She’d probably just mixed it up with her other donated books. Did that mean Joffrey was the law student?

Wanting to know more, he paged back to the inside cover to see what he could discover. Inside he found a name and phone number, penned in a beautifully-looping hand. _Sansa Stark_ , it said.

Sandor touched the letters of each looping S, marveling at the thoughtless elegance in each one. Sansa. An unusual name. A lovely one.

He tucked Sansa’s diary under his pillow. He liked her, even from afar, and he felt an empathy toward her that he thought he’d long since lost. Maybe she could help keep him company in here. Gods knew he could use it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to keep racing through this, toying with the thought of re-editing it as a oneshot when it's all done depending on the final word count. Anyway, enjoy this update!

In his sleep Sandor was free.

The smell of unwashed men, the chill of concrete walls, the choking feeling of miles of fence… it all slipped away in sleep. His dreams could take him anywhere: back to a rare childhood fishing trip, off to lands he’d only seen in magazines. Sometimes he had nightmares, and then waking up in prison was almost a relief. But it was the sweet dreams that he loved, the dreams that took him away and into something better.

There was a girl above him, hair like a curtain of fire. Her eyes seemed sad, but when he touched her they flooded with light. Her light filled the room, filled his heart, filled the world. Her weight on him was gentle, insistent, achingly erotic. It was a woman's touch, the touch of a ghost. Laughing eyes and ivory skin and warm legs a squeeze around him. In an instant her expression went from icy to melting, bubbling and frothing over with mirth like a pyramid of champagne.

It was a sex dream, but it was like no sex dream Sandor had had before. No animal urgings, no senseless flesh. He knew he filled her, but every thrust and roll was more than skin and desire. It was a surge of love and feeling, a taste of happiness he had never had his fill of. Her own happiness was a balm to him, lifting him away and out from sadness and pain and the prison itself, taking him away to the best man he could be. To an idealized future in which he could make a girl like this one look soul-achingly happy astride him.

Even his hands felt cleaner when he touched her. Sliding up her long torso, they seemed to belong there, finding her breasts underneath tumbling hair without needing to see between the tresses. In fact his hands seems to know her body already, knew where to find the tight buds of her nipples, his hips rising to meet hers by instinct. Though her face radiated joy, her heat around him was dark and filthy.

Her muscles clutched him. His balls felt sweet with aching, tightening up in a desperate need to fill the warmth his cock was wrapped in. She licked her lips, and in the dream he could taste them too: fresh blackberries and cool water and something painfully sweet. And when she bent down to him he could taste her smile, too, and she began to murmur in his ear and even though he couldn't hear the words to her song he knew that she was whispering _love_ and he came and and he shuddered and he gripped her and he woke up in tears.

 _Sansa_. 

It was her, it had to be. This wasn't the first time that red hair had swept him away in his sleep. Waking up was torture, not just for taking him out of his fantasy, but for leaving him with the harsh truth of it. He didn't know this girl, couldn't be sure she wasn't still a teenager somewhere, she didn't know he existed, and it all made him feel like the monster the county had locked up, all the joy and freedom she represented to him in his sleep fading away as soon as the gray light of morning returned.

And it wasn't just the dreams. As sick and strange as he felt about it, Sansa never left his thoughts even during the day. In the month he'd had her diary, Sandor had read it cover to cover. And despite its stilted nature, he'd learned a lot. He knew that Sansa was a gentle soul, unerringly polite, and yet possessing of an internal strength that even he could only marvel at. He knew she loved old movies and chai tea lattes. He knew she longed for her family, for her late childhood dog, and for a version of her boyfriend utterly unlike the boyfriend she seemed to have.

There were seven months left on Sandor’s sentence, and summer was fading. Some days were so hot that he laid belly-down on the concrete floor to nap, but night by night, the heat of the season was draining away. The mood inside shifted around the coming of fall, the cold of winter bringing grimmer spirits.

He’d started to go through the day with Sansa on his shoulder, sitting in his mind like some urgent errand. He would move his uninspiring food around on his plate, guessing at what it was intended to be — casserole, tri-tip, mashed potatoes, and wondering if she might like one thing or another. Was she a vegetarian? A picky eater? Would she have her own recipe for casserole, honed by cozy nights in?

He’d page through the books in the library with a new eye, too. What would she have thought of _Anna Karenina_? _Of Mice and Men_? Everything he’d read, he thought over again. He thought she might like the books that made her think of happier days: Jane Austen, _Candide_ , maybe. Or maybe she only checked out the raunchy romances, although he’d read a fair few, and thought they might make her blush. Maybe she didn’t read at all, like he hadn’t, but she wrote too articulately for him to believe that. And so his days went, imagining her into existence in his mind, building her from whisps like cotton candy.

Sandor wondered if she had another diary by now. Sometimes in the shower he would imagine what she might be writing, even though there were other men’s elbows jostling at his and guards barking and it wasn’t the best place to retreat into his mind. Retreating into thoughts of her took the horrible grey edge off of everything, helped him keep his head off of the awful, unrelenting blandness all around him. It got him in trouble one day, when he didn’t nod back at an inmate and was accused of disrespect. He got out of it, but it cost him two ramen packets, and woke him up a little.

It wasn’t safe to be so in his own head. It wasn’t safe to slip into daydreams of someone who may as well not have existed.

She did, though, and the temptation to take Sansa Stark from fantasy to reality beckoned. He did have her phone number. He had it memorized by now, the eights and threes enchanting him. He’d ignore the sounds of his cellie beating off or talking in his sleep, instead imagining what Sansa’s voice might sound like on the other end of the line. And when he did beat off, it was silently, straining to imagine a voice on a phone line, curved around a smile, whispering his name.

He came close once, dialing the first four numbers in a sort of trance. One or two guys glanced at him as he punched in one number, then another: he didn’t make phone calls, as a general rule. Their gaze was enough to make him hang up the phone, and then he felt ashamed. She didn’t know him. He’d let her keep it that way. To do anything else would be creepy as hell. So he cast glances at the phones, but didn’t try to call again.

Maybe he was going crazy. He’d read about how prison could do that, and maybe he’d been a fool to be so confident in his own mental fortitude. He could only work out in his cell so many times or read so many books before he started rotting, inside out. He could recognize that he’d become fixated, using Sansa as an escape, paging through her thoughts instead of being alone with his own. 

That didn’t mean he could stop. She’d become a symbol for him, and knowing she was out there helped balance his world. As rough as his own surroundings had become, as his life had become, there was at least one girl out there who was thoughtful and sweet and still unhardened by her own surroundings. And maybe that was enough. Crazy or not.


	4. Chapter 4

When someone new came to the prison, everybody knew about it. As much work as there was to do to run the place, and as understaffed as it was, inmates often wound up being the ones to process intake paperwork, to slip the secrets of a fresh inmate’s case to those inside before they could try to spin their own stories. Those whose records showed a Resisting Arrest were welcomed in gladly, especially if they’d punched a cop. Those who’d harmed children, well. They were doomed before they even finished their strip search.

So when Baratheon came in, everyone knew something was off. He was listed as pending trial, and ought to be over at the county jail. It was where they held everyone until their days in court came — shut up with the drunk and the desperate. It was like purgatory, where with hell you at least knew what to expect. The rumors, which Sandor half-listened to while taking a piss, were that Baratheon couldn’t hack it there, and had been transferred under the power of some fancy lawyer while waiting to post bail. As his charges included assault and attempted murder, no one had expected him to make a half-million dollar bail, but someone at the offices was already saying that he’d actually posted it, and been bounced back in for attempting to jump bail. Apparently he got to pick where to be held, even after trying to escape his own consequences.

Sandor shook his head. “Rich people.” His voice was rusty, but the men speaking in the corner nodded. Everyone in the joint agreed: fuck rich people. Everyone inside had run out of funds to fight the legal system, or was currently draining their accounts in an attempt to keep up. Unlimited money got you bail, got you the best lawyers, and if it came down to it, made you rich in commissary money. And all while complaining about how unfair it was.

“Punk kid, too,” one of the men offered. He was a one-eyed weirdo named Beric, who Sandor didn’t trust. “What kinda fag name’s Joffrey?”

Sandor must have nodded or grunted or done something, must have taken that first step to walk away. But it was a blur. The suspicion, the rage, all served to mute the air around him until he was back in his cell, stride after long angry stride. Joffrey. It couldn’t be a common name, surely, but he couldn’t stop the burning, nagging feeling of connection. 

He snatched the diary out from under his mattress so quickly he nearly ripped the cover, and he forced himself to calm down as he flipped from page to page. Every time the name Joffrey popped out he scanned for a surname, but there was nothing. He’d long since memorized every picture, but he still flipped through them, looking for a new face to jump out. There was nothing but the one with Sansa’s boyfriend’s arm around her, the unnerving pinch from thin fingers. 

Sandor was desperate to know for sure, though. He couldn’t let it rest. When his thumb caught on the corner of the Polaroid, he peeled it back, hoping for a handwritten caption.

What he saw instead chilled him to his bones.

_January 1 - grabbed my arm so hard it bruised  
January 9 - yanked my hair and pulled some out  
February 14 - hit me, made me have sex  
February 18 - hit me  
February 21 - pushed me against a wall. kicked me when i fell over.  
March 6 - called the cops, he sent them away. Bad.  
March 9 - worse tonight  
March 17 - he’s going to kill me._

Here it was. Here was the secret pain that Sansa was carrying, the hidden vein underneath her hollow words. Sandor flipped over a few more photos to confirm it, finding what looked like a list of Sansa’s possessions, hidden phone numbers with labels like Women’s Shelter and Uncle Benjen. She’d been planning on leaving, then. No wonder: it seemed like an escalating situation, and if it had resulted in attempted murder… he briefly wondered what could possibly be _worse tonight_ than rape and beatings, but shoved it darkly out of his mind.

Finally he saw a receipt he’d paged by a hundred times before, this in plain sight: a receipt under the name Cersei Lannister-Baratheon, for three cashmere sweaters. Sandor didn’t know what cashmere was, but it was sure fucking expensive, and Sansa had kept the receipt for some banal reason — as a bookmark, likely. It was an innocent slip of paper, but to Sandor, it looked like a signed death warrant.

Sandor exploded upward, diary in hand as he stormed out of his cell. He burst into the library, swinging the doors open behind him so everyone looked up, slightly alarmed. The security guard in the hall craned his neck to see through the still-swinging doors, looking on as Sandor found a stunned Sam and slammed the diary into his chest. 

“Hi, San-what.. Uh, what’s-” Sam sputtered, looking down at the book he held in confusion, but Sandor was already retreating.

Blood was pounding in his ears again, this time with the confirmation of his wild fears from earlier. It was like that panicked anger had solidified into something dark and cold. Sandor had gotten lucky in prison, had struck a deal that saw him serving a third of the time he ought to have and gone unfucked with since. His luck had come from a combinaiton of overcrowding and good behavior, and he was close enough now to see the end. Only an idiot would have risked that, and Sandor was no idiot.

But even as an idea, Sansa Stark was more important than getting back to his bullshit life a month earlier. Sandor’s life had been fucked up forever when he’d become his brother’s punching bag, in ways he was nowhere near done dealing with. And Sandor had always been big, had always been able to fight. Even now he was one of the largest and meanest-looking in a prison full of hardened criminals. With the scars on his face left over from Gregor, he’d been able to keep most danger at bay with just a look.

Not Sansa. She was slight, smart, forced to be secretive. She had no defenses but her words and her wills. And all of her trauma was coming from someone who was supposed to love and protect her. It was too much to bear. He couldn’t defend the girl who’d been writing the diary, couldn’t jump in and halt what had happened to her, but he could certainly use his limited advantages to beat the hell out of this fucker.

He had to slow down to pass the guards outside the doors so they wouldn’t get suspicious of him, and he saw the other guards standing around the perimeter, leaving the bulk of the inmates sitting and walking around the small, hot yard. He had to scan the yard, looking past old-timers and those sleeping in the sun, realizing with a sinking feeling that he still had no clue what Joffrey Baratheon looked like.

And yet there he was. Holding court at the newcomers’ table, instantly recognizable as rich, fine bones showing at his wrists and cheekbones like he’d been ripped from a glossy magazine. His blond hair picked up the sun and his uniform was brand-new, making him stand out from the bleached-out, grimey men who were already swarming around him. Joffrey was holding court, his sneering face spitting out some story that already had some sycophants smiling.

“...but it’s all bullshit, and that bitch will be back for sure,” he was saying, and a junkie kid at the end of the table nodded, eagerly lapping up Joffrey’s story. Joffrey leaned back, clearly feeling secure now that he’d hand-picked his prison and found some flunkies. He looked up, grinning, and that’s when Sandor punched him in the face.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one! :) Just the aftermath of The Punch. I meant to make it longer but I'm going out tonight so I wanted to get something up.

“Sandor, what the fuck?”

It was Sam, later.

“Are you serious, man? You didn’t even know that guy. And his family is dangerously messed up, you’re lucky the guards dragged you off so fast. You still got off easy.”

Sandor snorted. It had been a month added to his sentence, as he’d predicted. He’d work it down to ten days with good behavior: fights were a dime a dozen, inside. And it had all been worth it to see Joffrey’s stunned expression from the floor as he was hauled away, the split at his eyebrow and the puff of his nose.

The prison had put a Keep Separate on Sandor and Joffrey, and so Sandor had been moved to another block. It sucked being the freshest guy, back on a top bunk, but he’d known it was coming. It was why he’d given the diary back before going after Joffrey: it would inevitably have been seized in the search that came before he’d had to strip his bed and carry his bedroll, chained, down the hall.

Sam had it in his hands now, pacing outside the bars the Sandor was leaning against. He couldn’t help it: he felt loose-limbed, relaxed for once — nearly happy. His knuckles stung, making him smirk.

“Don’t smile, dude.” Sam ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing upright. He’d come into the prison so timid, but here he was, yelling at Sandor. This wasn’t the time to mention it, but Sandor was almost proud of him.

“They moving the kid?”

Sam canted a shoulder up. “I dunno. Yeah, probably. He’ll be inside till trial. Look… unofficially, you did the right thing. And also unofficially, how the hell do you know Sansa?”

“Sansa?” Sandor’s heart stopped for a moment, then restarted, faster than before. He straightened up, staring straight down at Sam now. It was strange, hearing her name aloud, spoken by someone else. Spoken by _himself_. Her name had been his silent prayer, so far.

“Yeah, Sansa. You handed me her diary and then hit her ex-boyfriend in the face?”

Sandor ignored the sarcasm. “Ex-boyfriend?”

Sam slammed the diary against the bars to get his attention, looking a little abashed when Sandor refocused on him. “Sorry. Gods. Yes, ex-boyfriend. I take it you do know her.”

Sandor shook his head. He was still flying high, but a little bit of shame crept in. He hadn’t meant to confess, but of course he’d have to. He just hoped Sam was a good enough friend to understand. “I found her diary. It was in a pile of donations. I’m not sure why I read it, I just… I recognized that kid’s name and he seemed like a creep.”

Sam sighed. “He is. And I don’t… get it, really, but I know Sansa. I would do the same thing for her if I could.”

The urge to ask _what’s she like_ was overpowering for a moment, but Sandor clamped it down. 

“I just don’t get why you gave it back, I guess,” Sam added.

Sandor shrugged. “I figured they’d take the diary when they moved my cell. You can’t start a fight without getting in trouble. And I knew you’d take care of it.”

“Ah. So you were just… returning it to the librarian.” Sam tried to hide his smile, but couldn’t. It wasn’t the best quality in a prison worker, but it was why Sandor liked Sam. He was nice, genuinely good. Sandor had known he’d help.

He was proven right when Sam raised his eyebrows. “I’m giving it back, as it happens. It seems like my friend Jon donated it by accident. It’s his sister’s.”

“Ah. How’d that happen?” Sandor asked, affecting unconcern. If Sam doubted his disaffected nature, he was kind enough not to show it.

“Moved her out of the Baratheon kid’s place, and I guess she didn’t want anything from there. I don’t blame her.”

“Me either,” Sandor rumbled darkly, and Sam raised his eyebrows.

“That much in there, huh?”

“If you know where to look.”

“Well, I’ll give him a call. See if she knew her diary was a part of the donation pile. She probably wants it back.”

“Or wants it out of weird prisoners' hands,” Sandor agreed, his heart sinking a little. It was nice to think of something moving from his hands to hers, but he still felt like he’d lose her when that diary was gone. Even if he’d never really had her.

Even if he was just being stupid.

Sam took the diary with him when he went, leaving Sandor alone with his thoughts and a new cellmate who wanted to convert him to some strange new cult or religion. He spent the night staring out the dark square of the window, looking at an illuminated light on the border wall, nodding every time he was asked a question. Eventually he fell asleep to his cellie’s sermon, chin slumping forward so his neck would hurt all morning.


	6. Chapter 6

Sandor knew the day was coming. Sam told him, in a roundabout way, that Jon would be stopping by on Monday — and while days of the week meant nothing to him, he could still check the calendar in the cafeteria and see the promised date.

It was the day the diary was leaving the prison. It was no longer in his hands now, of course, but he still felt a weird loss at the thought if it leaving the compound entirely. He thought it would be too weird to hover in the library, and suspected that Sam would run the book to his friend outside, anyway. So he forced himself outside, hoping that a few laps around the courtyard would help him burn off his unhappy energy.

It almost worked, too. Before long he’d jogged himself into a sweat, heat building in his body as he moved. It felt good to get out of his cell, out of the library now that he knew there were no books in there that could capture his imagination so much as Sansa’s sweet words. He’d just have to get over it, over her. He pushed himself to run harder, trying to beat back the thought of _how?_ with exhaustion.

It was the sounds that clued him in as to something happening. A dozen inmates, each rowdier than the last, were hooting and hollering by the side gate. He jogged over, curious, brushing through shoulders toward the front of the crowd.

_“Hey! Hey look at that.”_

_“Over here, hon!”_

The parking lot never held too many cars, but it was possible to glimpse people coming in and out, if there was anyone who visited. Some guys stayed all day by the gate, eager to see the comings and goings, to have a little bit of knowledge of the world beyond those barbed wires. Usually there would be just one or two, but today the men stood shoulder to shoulder, making it so Sandor needed every inch of his height to see above their jostling heads.

He looked, and for a moment his heart didn’t pound: his blood didn’t pump: his breath didn’t flow. And then he was gulping air and the pounding of his pulse was so hard in his throat that he thought he might be sick. Sansa was in the parking lot. He recognized her instantly, with every molecule in his body.

Even from afar, she was so beautiful it hurt.

The thought that she was there for him came as swiftly as it left. Of course she wasn’t there for him. So what could she be doing here? He didn’t care. His eyes drank her up, sitting on the hood of a gleaming car in an oversized sweater, though it was warm. She was studiously ignoring the noise from the yard, eyes trained on the entrance as she fiddled with her sweater. He felt like he’d finally cracked, like he was imagining her there or mistaking another redhead for her — the world was full of beautiful girls, when it came down to it, and this could have been another. But it wasn’t. It was her, he knew it like he knew his own person.

Sandor had the strange feeling of being outside of his body, like he was frozen in place behind the crowd as well as somewhere closer, so focused that he felt like the distance was dropping away. And yet she was still too far, so he couldn’t see the details of her face or the expression that she wore. He thought she was too far away to hear the guys’ commentary on her, but when a couple guys started yelling to get her attention, Sandor acted.

“Oi, fuck off,” he called, shouldering in and shifting the crowd bodily. He nodded at a couple smaller guys, chin-up, and then took off, but he ended up in a shouting match with one or two assholes who didn’t like being moved along. When he had everyone scared off and turned around, she was gone.

He went to the library as quickly as he could, ignoring the displeased crowd he’d left in his wake. The door was locked, but he knocked quickly, looking back over his shoulder in case anyone decided to follow him with trouble.

Sam opened the door, looking surprised, but his face cleared when he saw Sandor. “Oh, hey, man. I thought you were my friend coming back. Come on in.”

Sandor slipped in and Sam shut the door, turning back to his desk where he was stacking books. Sandor helped without being asked, both men sorting and piling together in harmony. 

“So, I assume you’re wondering what happened with the pickup,” Sam said after a few minutes, looking mildly up over the stack they were building. “Unless you just wanted to come see me.”

“Come on,” Sandor protested, but it was half-hearted.

Sam chuckled. “It’s cool. Jon came to grab the diary and a textbook he still needed: I guess it was just an accident, but his sister was glad to get it back. A little embarrassed to hear it had been out in the world, I think, but she had to leave most of her nice stuff when she moved out of the Baratheon place. I think you did her a favor in finding it.”

Sandor dipped his head in a nod, feeling awkward. Having seen Sansa in person now, he couldn’t help but feel regretful for intruding on her private thoughts. Sam seemed to pick up his feelings, though, because he put a book down to smile at him.

“Can I go off the record?” he asked, sounding more mischievous than Sandor had ever heard him. “As in, you didn’t hear this from me?” Curious, Sandor nodded, unable to help smiling back when Sam started grinning. “I told Jon about the beating you gave Baratheon. He’s grateful as fuck — he wished he could have done it, but you know, he’s trying to become a lawyer...“

“Yeah, leave it to the murderer,” Sandor joked, but the M word made it feel flat. He didn’t _love_ being a tool for other people’s anger, but in this case he was actually glad to have helped. Gods knew if anyone had done anything to _his_ sister, he would have felt the same.

“Come on, man, you’re alright.” Sam clasped Sandor’s shoulder: it was the first casual physical contact he’d had in months. That, more than anything else, helped Sandor believe Sam when he said “Thank you.”

“Anything to help,” he answered, adding _Sansa_ in his head. She might be out of his life now, but having seen her in person, she would never leave his mind.


	7. Chapter 7

Eventually he got out. It felt strange and unusual, standing on the sidewalk holding his duffel bag in the weak morning light. His body didn't know what to do with the freedom, and he stood stock still as he waited for his ride.

Sandor was surprised when the truck that pulled up wasn’t his friend Bronn’s, but was his own black beauty. Even better, a hulking black dog filled half the truck bed, already howling in excitement.

“Stranger,”' Sandor called, and the dog leapt from the truck as it started to slow.

Next was a mass of frenetic wiggling and slobber as man's best friend met his man. Sandor hadn't cried once since his sentencing began, but his eyes welled up to see his old companion. Bronn hopped out next, only to immediately make fun of Sandor for his teary eyes. A couple punches to the shoulder and one earnest bear hug later, the men were on their way.

Sandor heldStranger in his lap, the dog’s body overwhelming the cab of the car, both he and Stranger sticking their heads out the window to see what they left behind. Seeing the prison grounds and its complex of concrete buildings shrinking behind them was one of the sweetest things that Sandor had ever seen.

Bronn was letting him crash, as Sandor had had to give up his apartment before serving his time. Apartment, job, life... he'd have to reclaim them all.

Some were easier than others. He found temporary work as a bouncer easily enough, his prison record actually working in his favor there, and a cheap studio opened up in Bronn’s building after a month. It was the rest that was hard. Some days he found himself missing the diary, wishing he had kept it, as it was the sweetest, purest thing he'd ever had. Now his studio was filled with thrift store finds and fast food receipts, a weird nest of bachelordom that he rarely went to except to sleep in, preferring to spend as much time as he could outside with Stranger. It was so sweet to simply walk and walk, with no bars to stop him. 

His parole officer was a genial old man who called himself Elder Brother. Elder Brother had been a petty criminals in his 20s, but now he'd been helping people for decades longer. Sandor did resent having to meet with him, but Elder Brother was all right. He kept their check ins casual and helpful, even hauling his granddaughter in one day to update Sandor on all the tech updates he been missing. They ordered him a new phone and a computer and Sandor used them to order pizza, ignoring every app he’d been shown. Once he typed as much as “Sans-” into Google before backspacing quickly.

Sandor fell into a routine. It wasn't an exciting one, but he walked the dog and paid his bills and went to bed after his shift ended early each morning. The jobs were sometimes exhausting, not for the hours, but for the way they required Sandor to stand there, standing silently by while other people dance and shopped and lived.

Elder Brother was the one who told him he needed something else. “You’re rotting on the outside of prison as much as you did on the inside, my boy,” he said. They were headed out of the office to fish Blackwater Rush, Sandor carrying a case of beer. Sandor snorted and set the beers in the bed of his truck, reaching for Elder Brother’s tackle case to store it alongside.

“I’m fine,” he said, ruffling Stranger’s fur and locking everything away. “I got this guy.” Stranger, who’d been a skinny puppy, but now filled half the truck bed, wuphed in agreement.

“You need a hobby,” Elder Brother insisted. “Something physical. Something you can improve at. Just think about it.”

“I’ll _think_ about it,” Sandor answered noncommittally. Thinking was free, after all. And luckily, Elder Brother didn’t mention it again. 

It was Bronn who convinced him. “You’re being antisocial as fuck,” he said one day, after banging into Sandor’s apartment without warning, causing Stranger to hide behind the couch. “Nice guard dog.”

“You scared him,” Sandor defended, not willing to admit that he’d been a little taken aback himself. Bronn had caught him in his basketball shorts, drinking from a carton of milk in the kitchen. Bronn, who had been skinny-lean his whole life, shook his head.

“Christ, you’ve somehow got more muscle than scars, and you’re wasting it. If I had your build I’d get into MMA.”

“Monsters, machines… and… apricots,” Sandor guessed. “Mereen, martians, Aegon.”

“Aegon? The fuck? No, dude, mixed martial arts. Don’t say shit, I’ll sign you up. It’s happening.”

“It’s not,” Sandor warned him, but it was too late. He started that week.

Sandor liked MMA, it turned out. He liked having something to channel his energy into, having something to focus on improving, having a gym he could go to between his weird work shifts. His hair was growing out of the prison cut and it gathered sweat as he worked on his stand-up fighting, clinch ability and ground game, so he tied it back into a ponytail most days. And as his hair grew, his stance got better. His stamina went up. And the weeks slid into months.

He’d been free and clear for almost three months when Bronn stepped in again, this time waiting until they’d drank most of a fifth of whiskey over the course of an afternoon, lazily shooting cans out by the Blackwater. 

“How’s the love life?” Bronn asked, and Sandor shot him a look, but Bronn seemed serious.

“Really?”

“Yeah, Sandy, it’s been months. I would have thought the first thing you’d do was get laid. Now, me, that’s what I would do.”

“Yeah, but you’re a dirty old pig with a dirty old-” Bronn cut him off with a flurry of fake punches, which Sandor batted off easily. “If I had I wouldn’t have come gossiping to you about it, you know.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Bronn said, leaning back against Sandor’s countertop. “People like to talk about good stuff that happens to them. For example, I’ve got a girl myself. Ritzy. I’m talking _way_ fancy.”

“Congrats, gold-digger,” Sandor said, tipping his bottle toward Bronn in recognition. “Who’d have thought one of us would sleep their way into some class?”

“Not me,” Bronn answered, shaking his head. “But it’s your turn, buddy. She’s having a barbecue. Not like one we’d have, more of a garden party. Which apparently the difference is that you dress up and someone else cooks all the food.”

“Sounds less fun,” Sandor replied, already filling with dread. “Pass.”

“Pass nothing. You’re coming, we’ll try to get your giant ass drunk on fancy wine, you can meet my girl. And a few of her friends… at least one might throw you a bone.”

“I’m not coming to some fancy party to sniff around your girlfriend’s friends. Thanks though.”

“Thank me once you get laid,” Bronn advised.

And so Sandor found himself arranging and rearranging his work slacks on his bed with a range of shirts, trying to decide what to wear to a goddamn garden party. Maybe it would shut Bronn up if he went, anyway. After all, he’d have to stop forcing Sandor into things once he saw how it didn’t work. No girl in her right mind would be interested in an ex-con with a face full of scar tissue. And no girl would measure up to one Sansa Stark.


	8. Chapter 8

The party was worse than Sandor thought.

He liked Margaery, Bronn’s girlfriend, well enough. She introduced herself with apparent enthusiasm, happiness and wealth oozing out of every inch of her tanned skin. Her perfectly-cut dress, perfectly-manicured nails, and perfectly-staged home were intimidating, but Sandor was intimidating in his own way. She accepted his mug with grace, though, and so Sandor bit his tongue about the ridiculous level of opulence on display.

First he was made to surrender his coat to a man whose entire job seemed to be guarding coats. Then he was handed a glass of champagne that certainly cost more than any bottle of whiskey he’d ever bought in his life. Next he took in a fully catered spread and a backyard that gleamed green and flawless despite the arid season. The food was good enough, but some of the appetizers baffled him, especially when Margaery referred to them as canapés.

“What’s wrong with this fish?” he asked Bronn, under his breath.

“It’s cured,” Bronn whispered back.

“Cured of _what_?” Grumpy, Sandor slipped out back as soon as he could, taking another glass of champagne with him. He watched through the window as well-dressed people filed in and Bronn was introduced around. Bronn, with his effortless people skills, seemed to be enjoying himself. Sandor was feeling more out of place by the minute.

He finished his champagne and stared mournfully at the cut crystal glass, not wanting to move through the gathering crowds to refill it. Luckily Bronn came out then, bearing a bottle.

“Hey, bud. Doing okay?” he asked, pouring.

Sandor tipped the glass and tossed it back, wordlessly holding it back out for another round.

Bronn poured again and waited. This time Sandor swirled the glass, eyeing the bubbles as they disappeared. They’d been friends long enough for Bronn to know when to wait him out. 

“How do you do it, man?” Sandor asked finally. He knew he wouldn’t have to explain: Bronn would understand that he meant _this_ , being a part of society. The people and the peace… Sandor didn’t understand it. He wanted to, though.

Bronn shrugged. On most men it would look dismissive: on Bronn, he made it look lionlike, a lazy tilt. “Because of her.” He nodded with his chin in to the window, where Margaret buzzed about like a gilded bee. “You’ll see.”

But what Sandor saw was Sansa.

She was standing in the kitchen, just visible beyond the windowsill. Sandor was half-hidden by a topiary in the flawless yard, and so he stared, unseen, at her. It _was_ her, closer than ever. He felt like he was having an out-of-body experience, like he was being haunted by her, unknown.

Her chin tipped up as she laughed, sending her hair slipping down her shoulders and sliding down in a cascade of loose curls. Even from inside the house, she seemed to catch the light, haloed in a column of bright beauty.

“What?” Bronn tried to look past him, to see what had so arrested the larger man, but Sandor shook his head, letting Bronn shrug and go back inside.

He had to go. As desperately as he wanted to meet her — and every atom in his body was screaming to run inside, to see what she looked like from the same room, to hear what her voice sounded like — he couldn’t conceive of a world where Sansa Stark went from daydream to… to person. It was terrifying: so much of his sanity in prison he attributed to her, and he couldn’t help but be afraid that she would somehow know he’d invaded her privacy, involved himself with her ex-boyfriend. Being some stranger to her would kill him.

He turned away. 

The house was large and rambling, and he walked around one side of it, crunching across gravel and hugging the outer walls so as not to be noticed. He passed some bushes, a side driveway with a catering truck in it, and then found himself circling back to the front of the house. He looked longingly at his truck, surrounded by much nicer vehicles: but no, he’d have to wait or eat something before driving, now that he’d gulped down so much champagne. He doubted he was actually drunk, but he sure as fuck wasn’t risking his parole over it.

A car pulled into the drive with latecoming guests, and Sandor made a split-second decision to hide from them, too. He dove into the bushes on the other side of the house and slipped around a window, turning a corner to find a small, windowless nook, completely quiet and sheltered by the trees.

But he wasn’t alone there.

Sansa turned around to see who had interrupted her privacy. They were both in an alcove underneath the hanging curtain of a willow tree, sheltered on the other sides by the curving mass of the house. No one else was around. For the very first time, it was just Sandor and Sansa.

“Are you hiding, too?” she asked, smiling. Her voice wasn’t sweet, like he’d imagined. It was husky, teasing. If he hadn’t been obsessed with her before, he was utterly taken with her now, already sinking deep into her pale blue eyes. A plume of smoke floated between them; she waved it away, exposing the cigarette in her hand. “Smoke?”

“Uh, sure.” He wasn’t a smoker, but he hadn’t taken her for one, either. She handed over a half-empty pack, digging a lighter out of her simple black dress. “Thanks. Uh, cool dress.”

“No problem,” she said lightly, leaning back to get a good look up at him. “When you find a dress with pockets, you have to get it.”

He nodded, though he didn’t really know enough to agree. She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out but didn’t go anywhere. Sandor had lit his but was still holding it without inhaling, unable to look away from her. She didn’t flinch from his gaze, though, despite his size and scars: she smiled up at him and reached out.

Sandor passed the cigarette back, unable to believe his luck. Sansa inhaled deeply and handed it back, and they stood like that, sharing a smoke that burned his throat. He thought he could feel the press of her lips on each puff, and he felt like floating away with the fumes.

“I’m Sansa,” she said finally, sticking her hand out and up. Sandor took it in his hand, marveling at both the small size and the apparent strength in it.

“Sandor.” He held her hand for a split-second before forcing himself to drop it. “So why are you hiding?”

“Ah.” She stubbed the second smoke out, neatly tucking both butts into a napkin she pulled from her (seemingly bottomless) pocket. “It just got overwhelming in there, you know? Like, I love Margarey, but I had to get some air. And she _hates_ that I’m smoking now.”

“Recent vice?” Sandor leaned against the house, trying to appear casual. She mirrored his body language, leaning alongside him, her foot up against the house. Her shoes looked like jewelry: gilded, delicate.

“Trying to figure out what my vices should be,” she shrugged. “I tried shitty boyfriends, now I’m onto the next thing.” Sandor choked, and Sansa laughed. “Oh my gods, I’m sorry! It was a joke.”

“Very funny,” he wheezed, embarrassed by how red he had turned but unable to play it cool. “Sorry. I guess smoking is an improvement, then.”

“It’s a lot better for me,” she said, solemnly.

“Well…” He wondered, briefly, if he should confess. But he’d probably never see her again: this was his one moment in time with Sansa, and it was magical. He was too afraid to do anything to burst this impossible bubble. “Fuck that guy.”

“Cheers to that,” she said, nodding decisively. “Speaking of which, are you drinking?”

Five minutes later, they were back in the kitchen, Sandor standing guard while Sansa nicked another bottle of champagne from the fridge. She cocked her head at a side door, leading Sandor through it to a flight of stairs.

“I come here all the time,” she whispered, handing the bottle over so she could press her skirt against her legs on the ascent. “It’s huge, but there’s only one room worth hanging out in.”

She led him up two flights of stairs that twisted and turned, finally ducking under an ancient doorframe and slipping down a hallway into a front-facing room. Sandor didn’t know where they were going, but he knew he’d follow her anywhere.

Where it turned out she was leading was into a small conservatory: a room at the top of the house that was half-window, half-bookcase. A telescope stood by the glass panes and a squashy couch hid in a corner: from the window, they could see out over the entire drive, Sandor’s truck still standing out in a sea of Audis and BMWs.

“So, Sandor, why were _you_ hiding?” she asked, once they were both sitting in the middle of the carpet, Sansa clutching the bottle between her knees as she wrestled with the cork.

“Uh… want me to get that?” He reached for the bottle, but she tipped the neck out of his reach, finally wresting the cork loose with a _POP_. She immediately went up on her knees and brought it to his lips, forcing Sandor to gulp through a torrent of bubbles until he reached the sweet champagne. When she pulled it away, he laughed: his nose tickled something fierce. “Okay, fine. I was hiding because it’s been a while since I’ve been to a party… and this sort isn’t exactly what I’m used to.”

Sansa seemed to consider that, looking over his shoulder through the window as she tipped the bottle toward her own mouth. He watched her lips land on the rim where his had been, and it left an unquenchable thirst in him that had nothing to do with champagne.

“What are you used to?” she asked, finally. He felt like he was daydreaming. Here was Sansa, right in front of him, and _she_ was asking _him_ the questions. It was like she wanted to get to know him as much as he did her. She must not have been as smart as he thought. 

“Cheap beer. Some shitty setting. Wifebeaters — the shirt and the people.”

“Mmm, not me,” she said, putting the bottle down. They were practically knee-to-knee now. “I’m _too_ used to these things. I used to be really into them, but… like I said. I’m trying some new stuff.”

“What else are you trying?” he asked, his voice getting strangled in his throat.

“Smoking. Talking to strangers. Being brave.”

“You seem pretty brave,” he offered, his heart hurting that he couldn’t let her know _he knew_ exactly how brave she was. But you could still see it in her: now he could tell that it was mostly for show, but it was a show she was determined to put on, and Sandor was happy — beyond happy — to be in the front row.

“I’m working on it,” she said, solemn. “I could always be braver. For example, I almost said “talking to handsome strangers” just now, but I wimped out.”

“There’s bravery and there’s lying,” he rumbled, though something in his chest became weightless.

Sansa tilted her head to the side to look at him. She looked for a long minute, her eyes calm and deep. “Do you want to play a game?” she asked, finally, surprising him.

He said yes.


	9. Chapter 9

Sansa’s eyes were sparkling like sunlight on water. He saw mischief in them, even without knowing her typical expressions. He knew he’d play whatever stupid game she wanted, and happily. They were still cross-legged on the floor across from each other, Sandor’s slacks straining over his thighs and Sansa’s skirt pooling in her lap to her knees.

“Have you ever played truth or dare?” she asked, settling the skirt now amidst a flash of skin. He marveled at her, the life in her, despite what he knew she had faced — and not so long ago.

“Not since I was a little girl,” he said, laughing. “Which is to say, never.”

“It’s perfect,” she said. “Dare, since I’m trying to be brave, and truth, because you accused me of lying. And no one can lie during truth or dare, it’s a rule.”

“I’ve broken rules before,” he said. 

“It’s a _law_ ,” she clarified.

“I’ve broken those too,” he admitted. Downstairs he heard laughter, voices rising and falling. But right here, right now, all he was focused on was her. Something in her eyes shifted, but instead of getting harder, more fearful, they seemed to soften. It was like she knew everything, like she saw right through him — but that was impossible, of course. If she did, she would hate and fear him, he was certain.

“All the more reason you need to play truth or dare,” she insisted, sweetly. “Come on, it will be freeing.”

“Fine.” He swallowed, feeling the way that his drunkenness had been rising for the first time. He would keep his secrets, but that didn’t mean he had to lie to her.

Sansa clapped. “Great! I’ll start. Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” he decided. It was a risk, but maybe she would throw an easy one out and he could lean on dares after this without being accused of wimping out. At least, that was his brilliant plan. He was a little too tipsy to know how brilliant it was, but Sansa was at most a few glasses behind him, and she was surprisingly sober-eyed.

“Do you really not think you’re handsome?” she asked, seizing upon their exchange of a moment ago with what seemed like triumph. Sandor’s silence was stunned, and she snorted. “Okay, so that answers that. You’re wrong, you know.”

He cleared his throat, but couldn’t find any words. After a moment she took pity on him.

“Truth, by the way,” she said, nudging his knee with hers.

“Truth.” He mused for a moment, but there was only one question he really wanted to ask. “Why are you hanging out with me instead of your friends?”

“I see them all the time,” she answered, shifting and looking uncomfortable, though he couldn’t think of why. “You’re new. You’re one of Bronn’s friends?”

He nodded. Bronn was basically his only friend, but Bronn certainly had others. He wondered how many times Sansa had met Bronn, how many other invitations he’d passed up that might have lead him here. Or maybe this was the only way things would ever have gone so well: one perfect moment in time.

“Hardly enough of a reason,” he pointed out.

“Well, too bad, that’s my answer,” she sniffed. “Truth or dare?” He had to laugh, simply at the ridiculousness of life, and shrugged back at her. Whatever she wanted to know, he’d tell her. She seemed to read it in his face, because she smiled with him, and said “Truth then. Why are _you_ hanging out with me instead of Bronn, huh?”

“Seriously, you’re asking me that?” He shook his head, and she nodded up at him, her face earnest. There was a tiny trio of freckles under her left eye, he noticed, struggling not to let it distract him with its impossible cuteness. He shook his head again, as if to shake off her freckles and focus on the question. But the answer was simple: diaries and fistfights aside, there was no world in which he wouldn’t have followed her up those stairs. “Because you asked me.”

She smiled at him for a moment, a moment he soaked up like it was water and he’d been in the desert for years. “Okay. Dare.”

“Dare, huh?” He leaned back a bit, thinking. Just then his stomach made a gurgling sound: it was loud and insistent, making them both laugh. “Okay… Since you lifted that champagne so expertly, how about you go steal us some food?”

Sansa giggled again. “Okay, done.” She leapt up to her feet, disappearing in another flash of thigh, leaving Sandor alone for the first time since they’d started talking. He barely had time to take a deep breath, pinch his wrist, and try to check if he was sweating without looking too obvious. She’d left the rest of the champagne on the carpet: he picked it up and took a swig.

The door banged open and Sansa backed in, toting a full tray, napkins spilling off the sides. He leapt up to help her and they moved to the couch together, putting it down in the middle so they could sit on either side. She looked up, beaming, and popped something off the tray into his mouth.

“Ew, what is that?” he asked, poking through her finds. “Was that seaweed?”

Sansa laughed at him, but he didn’t mind. “Yes, you dork. It’s sushi.” He made a face, but she rolled her eyes good-naturedly and started pointing things out. “These are avocado rolls. Those are unagi, that’s eel. This is a California roll, it’s just your basic crab and cucumber. Do you like caviar?” He shrugged. “Okay, do you like salty things?”

“Yeah,” he said, reluctantly. He was afraid to try the strange spread between them, but Sansa seemed happy, and it wasn’t like he was a picky eater — just not someone who had come across caviar or sushi before. “I guess.”

“Okay, here, it’s your turn anyway, so I dare you to try some.”

“I might not have picked dare,” he pointed out, but reached for the same type of roll she’d eaten. It was mild, with some salt and some avocado flavors. He made a _not-bad_ face and she offered another one. “Here’s the salty one. It’s ikura, salmon roe.”

“Salmon _row_?”

“Salmon egg.”

“Oh.” He eyed it, but she dug under it with chopsticks and held it to his lips. He ate it all in one bite, the ocean exploding in his mouth. “Whoa.”

“It’s good, right?”

“I mean, I could fish with that,” he said, reluctant to admit that he loved it. “And get you a real fish. A cooked one. Not a raw egg baby.”

“I like the egg babies,” she said primly, snagging another for herself. “And you love it.”

“They’re not bad,” he allowed, letting her feed him another one. He bit the chopsticks on a whim, and she giggled as she tried to pull them back out of his mouth.

They made short work of the rest of the platter, Sansa sliding into more and more of a boneless position on the couch until she’d well and truly sunken into its squashy cushions. Sandor set the platter on the floor when they were finished, both of them stretching out, carefully not touching on the small seat.

“Can I ask how you got those scars?” she asked finally, quietly, still half-collapsed and looking sleepy.

“It’s not your turn,” he said, just as gently, though a pang went through his heart. No one had asked him so nicely, so politely, before. He didn’t want to open the door to that conversation yet, though. Not when it opened to Gregor.

“Fiiiine,” she said, stretching her legs out so her feet landed on his knees. Sandor hesitated, then put a hand on her foot. She gave him a crooked half-smile, and he let it stay there, willing his hand not to sweat. Her toenails were painted coral.

Sandor had gone years without a woman showing him so much attention, and Sansa was far from the type of girl he would have once had the balls to flirt with in a half-lit bar. She seemed bright with life, happy and luxuriant like — like… he thought he would be, after prison. Like maybe she’d been uncaged herself, and was doing the right thing with that freedom. Sandor himself had just shut himself back up again, not embracing his life like Sansa was. In her own way — flirtatious games with strangers, coral nail polish, smoking in secret — she was testing her own bravery, making the dreams she must have had under Joffrey’s thumb manifest in little pieces.

“You ask me,” she added, and he had to tear himself from his mind: focus on Sansa’s face, here and now. It took him a moment to remember the game.

“Okay.” She wiggled her toes, waiting. Sandor gripped her foot a little tighter, his stomach roiling. He hoped it was from her proximity, and not the sushi. “Um, truth.”

“Okay,” he echoed, leaning back to think. What did he want to know about her? It was a tempting question. He’d had so many thoughts about her, when he was inside, so many things that he’d wondered. Most of all was what had happened to her: how Joffrey had ensnared her, how had she survived it, what had lead to her escape. Had her family welcomed her back? How was she coping? What were her wishes, fears? Her favorite color?

Now he wanted to know more. She’d mentioned an ex, and he thought he might have a chance of asking about Joffrey, not letting on everything he knew, but he didn’t want to increase his dishonesty or ruin the magic of what was happening. He didn’t dare think of this being more than one perfect moment in time.

He wanted to know about her _now_. Starting with the basics. He thought about what he would ask her, if he didn’t know her already. What he should be asking her, pretending that she was a stranger to him, not already someone precious. “What do you do?”

Sansa laughed. “That’s a boring one.”

He shrugged. “I want to know.” 

She wet her lips and looked around for the champagne, but it was sitting on the floor out of reach. Sandor let her foot go and let her shift forward to grab the bottle, acting as casual as he could. “Well, I’m a victim advocate. I work with the Victims Services Unit and the District Attorney's office-”

“And the parole board,” he finished, light dawning. Of course she was helping people now. His chest was warm at the thought of it, but it also made him nervous having her in proximity to the parole board.

She nodded, eyes focused on him but not asking any questions. “Yep. I’m pretty new, honestly, but it’s really challenging and rewarding. And sad, sometimes, but that’s life.”

“That’s life,” he echoed. “That’s amazing, Sansa, really.”

“Thanks.” She grinned, seeming to mean it. “What about you?”

“Is that my truth?”

“Sure,” she allowed, rolling her eyes at him. “I’ll even give you a dare for it.”

“Alright, well, I’m not sure if that’s a fair trade. I’m bouncing right now. Event security, stuff like that. Some transport guarding. I’m with an agency that just sends me around and I stand around and look big and scary, sometimes help carry stuff to help out.”

“That sounds…” he saw her look for something positive to say, and was surprised when she found something. “Ooh, you could you be a security guard for someone cool someday. Like a musician or someone royal.”

“Someone royal could be cool,” he said, secretly feeling like he should have tried harder this time around. He’d read a ton of books about starting his own business in jail, but he didn’t know what kind of business he’d be interested in opening. It would have been nice to meet her as a small business owner instead of as hired muscle. At least she knew he wasn’t working this party. “Okay, you want a dare?”

“Hit me,” she said, leaning toward him on the couch and propping her cheek up on her hand. “Seriously, let’s do a good one.”

He raised his eyebrows, and she quirked hers. She was so beautiful, and so brave. It was a shame she thought she wasn’t brave enough yet: he could see that she was. “Okay. I dare you to… do the bravest thing you can think of.” It was kind of open-ended, but maybe it would help. Maybe she’d take the next chance to take that next step. He was kind of proud of himself for thinking of it.

And then he saw her face. Her eyes had become cautious, nearly grey with some unreadable emotion. His stomach clenched again: oh god, were they both about to throw up on each other? Maybe it wasn’t emotion coursing through him and clearly affecting her, maybe it was food poisoning.

“Sansa?” he asked, cautiously. She took a deep breath, swaying forward a little. He tensed to catch her, thinking she was going to fall, but when her body tilted into his, it was to kiss him.


	10. Chapter 10

The kiss was only a moment long, but it felt like it took forever: Sandor's adrenaline spiked, so he felt every instant of contact, the press and release of her soft, champagne-flavored lips.

“What was that?” he asked, stunned.

“What was what?” Sansa shrugged, but she was bright red. “You dared me.”

“Not explicitly,” he argued, and then stopped to think about it. “But it _was_ brave.”

She nodded, her blush fading slowly. “I thought so.”

The air felt different between them now, and Sandor cleared his throat, not sure what to do next. He glanced over Sansa’s shoulder and was surprised to see that the day outside the windows was slipping into night, a few cars already gone from the driveway. “Looks like we missed the party.”

“Oh yeah, look at that.” She twisted over her shoulder, looking out without concern. The curls in her hair had softened into waves, making her hair look longer and touchable. He longed to reach for it, but the casual intimacy they’d established felt delicate, like it would evaporate with the game. “Should we get back?”

He shrugged, watching as she turned back to him and smiled, meeting her smile with his own, despite his racing thoughts. Later there would be time to analyze every minute. For now, he was just enjoying their last moments together. “I guess so.”

“Do you have to get home?” she asked, popping up to her feet and reaching for his hands. He wanted to laugh at the thought of her helping him up, but he gave her his hand anyway, letting her pull as hard as she could while he stood. “I think Margie and Bronn will probably be up drinking late, if you feel like staying.”

His heart felt full. She wanted more time with him? The thought of hanging with Sansa and Bronn together was strange but appealing, natural in a way that he never would have predicted. He’d love to stay up all night, playing a pseudo-couple, drinking some more, maybe seeing if she’d kiss him again… 

But. “My dog needs to be taken out,” he said, with real regret. “And I have to feed him.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, a little sadly, but perking up immediately. “What kind of dog do you have?”

He told her about Stranger as they went down the stairs, carrying the empty sushi tray and champagne bottle, and by the time they hit the kitchen he had agreed to introduce them.

“Let me see your phone,” she said once they put everything down in the kitchen, holding out her hand. He was a little embarrassed by the waitstaff floating around them like an audience, but Sansa’s face was bright and expectant, so he extracted it from his pocket and handed it over. The coat check guy gave him a thumbs-up behind Sansa’s back, and Sandor stared straight up at the ceiling, fighting hard to look calm, as she tapped the number he knew by heart into his phone.

“There’s like nobody in here,” she commented, turning her phone around to show him the list: Bronn, Elder Brother, Sansa, Work. “New phone?”

He nodded, but didn’t explain. She handed it back over without further comment, though, just saying he should text her so she had his number. “You just like me for my dog,” he teased, feeling brave.

“Or I just like you,” she offered. “The dog’s a bonus.” He chuckled, not believing her, but happy to hear it.

Behind her, he saw Margaery and Bronn heading in with a few other guests, clearly about to interrupt them. It was a little sad to lose his little window of having Sansa all to himself — even if he didn’t know why she’d want him to, or where it could go, or what he could tell her, he already knew he’d be texting her. He’d take whatever little piece of her presence that he could get.

The others came in, Bronn raising his eyebrows at Sandor, Sansa being swept up into the crowd of her friends. She looked at home in between the well-dressed women, the men in suits. It filled him with a strange sense of pride, though, knowing she’d chosen to spend her evening with him instead.

He slipped out as quickly as he could, already overwhelmed by what had transpired. Sansa waved, and he nodded back, pleased with how coolly they had both played it in public. No one would know she’d kissed him — not that it had meant anything. Kissing a mean old man like him… it was definitely brave.

The drive home felt strange, like his heart was beating under a brand-new rhythm. For the first time since he’d taken his truck back from Bronn, Sandor flipped through the radio stations, settling on something sweet and mournful to see him home.

Stranger greeted him happily, slobber meeting Sandor’s face at the same time two huge paws hit his chest. “I’m in trouble, boy,” he said, hugging Stranger briefly before Stranger escaped back to the floor and turned, expectant, toward his dinner bowl. “You don’t care, huh?”

But after he’d been fed, Stranger came over to where Sandor had parked on his couch, sniffing him all over. His investigation was gentle enough, but thorough, and when he wuphed softly before laying down, Sandor couldn’t help but feel like Stranger approved of Sansa’s scent on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick one to show the aftermath! Next up.... a date?????? MAYBE/??? If Sandor gets his head out of his ass to realize that's what it is, anyway.


	11. Chapter 11

He didn’t text her.

He wanted to, of course, but it felt like a fluke, being given her number instead of having memorized it off of a lost diary. Like maybe he’d earned something he already had, but that didn’t give him the right to use it. By the next day, he’d already convinced himself that he shouldn’t call, but that didn’t stop him from pulling up the contacts in his phone a few time each day, taking in her name in perpetual disbelief.

Sandor checked in with work every morning, usually from bed before getting dressed. As a parolee, he didn’t qualify for some gigs, as some bank and airport jobs required people with clean backgrounds. So he’d call in, see what was available, and go back to sleep if there wasn’t anything to do. Today was one of those days — a bank dropoff, one of the best-paying gigs, and one he didn’t qualify for. Not for the first time, he spent a minute feeling sorry for himself, then a few more minutes being hard on himself for not doing something else. He hadn’t gotten free of his brother’s violent way of living just to act as a threat of violence, even if that was in the name of peace. And yet he woke up each day, hoping to stand in a corner and look intimidating somewhere. It was enough to make him go back to sleep, Stranger curled up behind his knees.

He woke up to his phone ringing. He thought maybe there’d been a last-minute job, so he picked up groggily, not checking the caller ID. “Yeah?”

“Hi, Sandor?” Her voice was uncertain, but he knew it was Sansa immediately. He sat up in one nervous motion that made Stranger lift his head, confused.

“Sansa?” He willed his heart to shut up for a minute so he could hear her. It felt like it was pounding harder than it ever had. “Are you okay?”

She snorted, and his head cleared. She was fine. She was the same. She was calling him. “Am I _okay_? Yeah, are you okay? I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I don’t normally kiss guys and give them my number and then have them not call me.”

“Do you kiss a lot of guys and give them your number?” He slid out of bed and started to get dressed, Stranger still watching him, but not getting up, the lazybones.

“Very funny. I definitely don’t. Which is why I thought I’d call and let you know about it.”

“Consider me informed.” He paused, one leg in his pants, the phone to his ear. “So wait, are you calling just to yell at me for not calling you?”

“I guess you could say that,” she allowed, sounding like she was torn between laughter and trying to be stern. “So maybe you could make it up to me.”

“I’m not working today,” he offered, before he could chicken out. “Are you?”

“I was, but my client’s court date got pushed. I’m just leaving her house now. Are you hungry?”

“Oh yeah. Are you?”

“Depends on how much food you want to buy me to apologize.”

He grinned. “Want to meet Stranger?”

“That’s your dog, right?” she asked, teasingly. “Not something else?”

“ _Sansa Stark_ ,” he said, in fake chastisement and horror.

She laughed, then paused. “Wait, did I tell you my last name?”

“You put it in my phone,” he lied. “Uh. Mine’s Clegane.”

“Gods, we have weird names,” she mused. “Okay, I’ll text you where to pick me up?”

“Sounds good.” He threw the phone back onto his bed and shook his head, freaking out a little internally. He’d almost fucked everything up because he was half-asleep and caught off guard. Or maybe he’d let his guard down on purpose. She did that to him. 

“Shit, Stranger, are you ready for this?” he asked, quickly slipping into the rest of his clothes: dark jeans and a hunter green t-shirt.

She was working across town, so he loaded Stranger up in the truck and started heading over, grateful he didn’t have any extra time to psyche himself out. He could hang out with Sansa again, no problem. People hung out all the time. It didn’t mean he had to have a mental breakdown… he just had to remember that.

He spotted Sansa on the corner she’d directed him to, smoking a cigarette and hugging herself, seemingly trying to stay warm. “It’s so cold!” she cried, once she saw him pulling over and started scrambling in through the door. “That was torture.”

“It’s spring,” he answered, amused. “How are you this cold?”

“How are you only wearing a t-shirt?” Sansa looked intimidatingly beautiful in a tailored grey dress under a matching blazer, with beige heels and a string of pearls, but as soon as she shut the door behind her she started stripping the blazer, off, kicking her heels onto the floor of the truck cab. “Wait, I didn’t meet your dog yet!”

“He’s good back there for a minute, let’s go somewhere I can let him out of his kennel,” Sandor answered, reluctantly pulling back into traffic despite the urge to sit and watch her costume change. He kept his eyes on the road as she reached into her bag, ignoring everything but the elbow in his face when she slid leggings on underneath her skirt and went to unzip her own dress. “Whoa, watch the flying elbows.”

“Zip this.” She grabbed one of his hands at a red light, pulling his fingers toward her neck. He felt, briefly, the elegant pillar of muscle there, before his fingertips alighted on a tiny zipper. He gave it a tug, let go when she batted his hand away, and managed not to peek until the light turned green. They were turning, anyway, so he glanced over, swallowing hard at the glimpse he got of a pale bra and the bony column of her spine.

He took her to the Blackwater Rush, a river that went from busy waterfront to wide open waters, surrounded by a large greenbelt. It was the kind of place that made it hard to imagine being locked up in a cage, made it hard to imagine anything but green, green grass. He parked behind the coffee shop and went around to let Stranger out while Sansa went inside. She came back out with a black coffee for him — “I guessed,” she said, and he nodded — and something she called a dirty chai for herself.

“What’s dirty about it?” he asked, while she and Stranger fussed over each other, loading each other up with kisses.

“I assume the espresso,” she guessed, frowning into it. Stranger leaned against her side, his tongue lolling out. “But I don’t know its personal life.”

Sansa was still cold, so they stopped in at a small dive bar down the road, where a busty, tattooed bartender poured a dollop of whiskey into each of their cups (making Sandor’s much bigger after a look at him). With their cups filled with two times the liquid warmth, they started down the path that wound along the river. 

He complimented her on her new outfit: low-top sneakers, leggings and an oversized sweater that said Westeros Law School. “The sweater’s my brother’s, he gave it to me on a really bad night, so it’s extra cozy,” she explained, plucking it away from her body as she glanced down. Stranger, off the leash now, gamboled ahead of them. “To be honest, I normally dress better for dates, but I spent all morning waiting around in court with heels on. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Are you kidding? Look at me.” He pointed at his t-shirt, where he’d already spilled a drop of coffee. Inside, his mind was racing. _A date?_ It was more than he’d ever hoped for.

They walked and walked. Sansa liked to smell the tumbling wildflowers, and Sandor pretended not to look when she bent over. The storefronts dropped away, becoming banks of roses along the rushing water. The path narrowed, became unpaved, became paved again. And as they walked, they talked, Sansa first ranting about the unreliable legal system that she had to work around, then telling him a little bit about her family. Apart from the law school brother she had a handful of younger siblings, two boys and a girl, another older brother who had a family across the country. Sandor didn’t offer any information about his family in return, but he told her about the day he’d found Stranger, starved and wandering down the road. He shared a few details of his life now, the apartment he was living in, his unfocused goal of something better. He even confessed to being on parole, but she didn’t ask why.

“Who’s your PO?” she asked instead, taking the top off of her drink to get at the last drops of sweet whiskey.

“Elder Brother.”

“Oh, he’s great.” She nodded, and so he pointed out the places he and Elder Brother had fished, until they’d walked almost all the way out of town. Stranger led them across the small wrought iron footbridge that marked the end of the trail, so they followed him to the paved shortcut back, which wound through a quiet neighborhood of out-of-the-way mansions on the river’s edge. That side was better maintained, and they could see the path they’d just taken across the water.

The houses were few and far between, peeking out from their properties wherever a break came between fences and trees. Sansa perked up when she saw a sign outside of one that said Open House. “Want to go in?”

“What, really?” He looked from himself to her doubtfully. “I’m not sure we pass for potential mansion-owners right now.”

“Rich people dress comfy, too,” she insisted, waiting while he clipped Stranger’s leash back on. “Plus we’re walking around in casual clothes on a Wednesday morning instead of being at work. Come on, let’s check it out.”

They swung the gate open and walked up a green path that slanted uphill a little, so the river spread out behind them as they approached the house. It was a tidy two-story brick building, deceptively simple but for its size and grounds. Two white columns framed a wide glass door, and they tied Stranger carefully to a bench outside before heading in.

The thing Sandor liked the most about being in ritzy buildings was the size. In his studio apartment, where the walls were thin and shitty and every residence was square-shaped, he couldn’t help but flash back to prison sometimes, feel just as trapped as he had as a kid, hiding under his covers so Gregor would think he was asleep. In the fancier places he worked, and this house, the ceilings were so tall he thought he’d never feel trapped. It was bright, light-filled, not as big as Margaery’s place but definitely expensive. A realtor was talking to someone across the room, so they poked through the kitchen and dining room alone, Sansa pointing out design details that stood out to her. She liked the built-ins; he liked the look of the pipes. 

“I would never notice that stuff,” she said, sounding impressed, when he commented about the seamless addition of some modernized kitchen gear. “All I can tell is that that’s a Tiffany chandelier.”

“See, I don’t even know what that is,” he laughed. “We’re a good team.”

“Well, I would hope so!” the realtor gushed, coming in. She was a middle-aged woman with a hard-sprayed bouffant of hair, her tortoiseshell glasses perched somewhere in the middle of its pouf. “What a gorgeous couple you guys are, is that your dog outside? Babies with the nanny today?”

“Oh, no babies yet,” Sansa smiled, while Sandor was tensing up to be kicked out. Instead he was surprised to have Sansa come closer, taking his arm as though she’d done so a thousand times before. “How many bedrooms does this place have?”

“Four,” the woman beamed, leading them back into the entryway toward the staircase. “So you can do guest room, office, and baby’s room… or maybe a guest/office split, and a couple baby rooms… and there are always bunk beds!”

Sansa laughed politely, conspiratorially, seeming for all the world like a newlywed… or an award-winning actress. 

The realtor left them alone in the master bedroom — ”get the feel!” she said, winking and backing out — and the two of them looked out at the river from the window. Below, an actual rich family was approaching the house, one well-dressed kid breaking off to pet Stranger. Beyond the river, Sandor could see trees, the shops in the distance. And in front, the best view of all, was Sansa. She was staring out at the town, a thoughtful silence sitting not-uncomfortably between them.

“What do you think, should we get the place?” he joked, sitting down on the overly-neatened bed. She turned to him and smiled — a soft, sad sort of smile that reflected the Sansa that he’d imagined. So far she’d been so much brighter, so much more alive. But maybe the Sansa he’d sensed was still in there, and this luminous version of her was a reaction to the shyer, sadder girl inside.

“I need a smoke,” she said, and he got up to follow her, feeling like maybe a version of them could have stayed there forever, made a place of their own. But for now, it was enough to imagine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys I made a [playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/user/1252977635/playlist/5fTGg9nTta2fvfIVzcwtI0?si=yZAqA41ZR9erHQ7mXv90dw) Suggestions and feedback welcome!


	12. Chapter 12

Stranger fell asleep once they got back to the truck, so they let him nap while they went into a small taqueria Sansa knew. Sandor ordered the largest super burrito they had, while Sansa picked out a plate of nachos. He watched her eat them with increasing curiosity, seeing how she never ate a chip without stacking each one first with beans, cheese, pico de gallo and a jalapeño.

“What are you doing?” he asked. It didn’t look like she was a picky eater, as she’d ordered her nachos with everything, but each bite was meticulously stacked and considered.

“Oh,” she said, seeming embarrassed that he had noticed. “I’m making the perfect bite.”

“The perfect bite?”

“Yeah, you know. The perfect bite. Everything on it. You never know which bite might be your last, so I always make sure every bite is just perfect. And once I’m out of perfect bites, I’m usually full. No need for one weird chip covered in just sour cream or anything like that.”

“The perfect bite,” he mused aloud. “Sounds weird, but I like it.”

She laughed and offered him a loaded chip. “It’s good, try.”

He opened his mouth, trying not to laugh when she shoved the whole chip at his face, leaving some of the sour cream on his lip. “Come on, I can feed myself. This is the second time now,” he argued, putting his hands up to block her before going for a napkin. “Do I look so helpless?”

“No, you still look handsome,” she said quietly — clearly joking, but just as clearly not joking.

Sandor shook his head. “You’re nothing like I imagined,” he said before he can help it.

“What?” she asked, licking her fingers.

“Nothing,” he said.

But it was true. She was nothing like the Sansa he had thought she’d be, except when she was, except she was more. More complex, more human, less of a victim and more of a hero to him already. She seemed to have built herself back up, maybe not as strong, but at least in working order. Maybe she smoked now, or spent her weekdays dating ex-cons, but he liked the real Sansa. Liked her better. She wasn’t quite what he had fantasized about (and damn did he feel guilty for some of those dreams), but he liked the reality more. He liked the truth of her, the existence of her, the fact of her across the table.

He kissed her this time, when he dropped her off at her decent apartment downtown. She asked if he wanted a coffee, and he knew that she _meant_ coffee, but he walked her to the door instead. She turned to say goodbye with one hand on the door, and he took her other wrist gently in his hand, tugging her the half-step back into his chest. 

It took every ounce of his own bravery to do it. But he couldn’t resist anymore, he didn’t know how he had lived so long without kissing her before. It wasn’t an honest kiss: she didn’t know everything about him, but then again, she hadn’t asked. He felt like a liar, a damned man, but he’d felt that way before.

She had to lift onto her toes to reach his bottom lip, but he chased her mouth down, meeting her with delicate pressure, sweet little sips. It was a gentler kiss than any one he’d ever had. Not the passionate embrace of his imaginings, not a heated press of hips. It didn’t feel like a first kiss at all. It felt like a hundredth, a thousandth. It felt like a millionth kiss.

Like the everyday beauty of two people who were their own family, Sansa in his arms felt like solid ground. It was a comforting, obvious presence — like she’d always folded into his arms, just so; like she always sighed if he curled his arms around her slight shoulders. Maybe it was because he’d imagined her here countless times before: or maybe there really was one person for everyone whose shape slotted neatly into their own.

She unwrapped herself eventually and went up to bed. He got a call as he was leaving, a last-minute job looking over some big-box store warehouse while a rerouted shipment came in. It meant dropping off Stranger and changing into his uniform for an evening of numbing nothingness right after the best (and longest) date of his life, but he’d never been so happy to stand in the half-dark, where no one could see him smiling like an idiot.

After that they had lunch together by the courthouse, at a small diner that was crawling with cops, which set Sandor’s teeth on edge. They baked cupcakes for a baby shower Sansa was going to, eating the first batch and making another one so hastily that they ran out of half the ingredients and ended up picking through the bright, empty grocery store bakery in the middle of the night. They kept kissing: usually at the ends of dates, but sometimes at random, and sometimes for ages. He learned that she tasted like cinnamon toothpaste and smelled like lavender detergent and that she loved Thai food. He learned that she’d broken her arm in middle school and that she preferred movies to TV and that she spoke a limited amount of French, but with a perfect accent, thanks to a crush she’d once had on her French teacher. He learned things he’d never have known from a diary.

And eventually, he started earning the information that he’d stolen. One day they were back at the river, camped out with Stranger and a takeout pizza. She’d been regaling him with Arya Stories, which were tales of her younger sister, who seemed a hundred times more wild than Sansa on her wildest day. And then Sansa trailed off, her eyes leaving his for the roaming waters of the river.

“And then what?” he asked, not wanting to pry, but seeing how her focus had slid away. “What did your mom say when she saw the car?”

“Hm? Oh.” She glanced back into his face, forcing a smile. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize.” Something in his stomach tightened to see her try to hide her thinking, curate her response. Her smile was normally beautiful, but when falsified, it held none of its charm. It just made him sad, thinking about why she would still have some of those instincts to fake happiness. “You thinking about something?”

“I… yes.” She swallowed and pulled at the grass next to her leg. “Honestly, I was just thinking about how much she hated my ex. She was so mad when I moved in with him. I think she’s smarter than I ever was, on top of braver.”

“You’re _brave_ ,” he insisted softly. She’d proven it, time and time again. “Just not Arya-level foolhardy.”

She shrugged. “Well, anyway. She hated him, and she was right. I shouldn’t have hidden that thought from you, I don’t mind saying it.”

“It’s okay,” he said, and bit his lip, worrying the corner where the scar tissue resisted his tooth a little. These were shaky grounds to walk on — he’d never really tried the high road before, and he didn’t know if it could bear his weight. “I just don’t want you to feel trapped with me, or like you can’t speak your mind. I’m not here to control you or hurt you.”

She met his eyes steadily. He could see something in them — like she recognized that he understood what it had been like. Even if she didn’t know why he understood. “Why _are_ you here? she asked, repeating the words they’d asked each other during their game of Truth or Dare.

He kissed her. She saw him coming and just waited, her eyes shutting softly the instant before he reached her. The light of the sun made her veins visible on her eyelids, the delicate beauty of them the last thing he saw before he closed his own eyes and found her lips. She let him kiss her and kiss her before she opened her mouth, leaning back bit by bit until he was leaning her all the way back in the grass and the leaves.

They hadn’t thought to bring a blanket, so he propped himself halfway off of her, giving her space to lean back on her elbows and keep off of the ground. She smiled against his mouth and drew him all the way against her, so her hair was tangled red and green in the grass, and his weight pressed her into the flowers. For one sweet moment he was crushed into her, pinning her to the earth with his body, hardly willing to let her up now that he had her trapped in his arms.

He released her, though, rolling to the side so they were face-to-face, Sansa curling one arm underneath her cheek like a pillow. She reached for his scars, and he let her touch them, closing his eyes when he found himself near tears at her touch. No one had touched him like this in years, and certainly not there. The best he’d always hoped for had been acceptance, someone to put up with the physical and emotional reminders of what his life had been. He knew she didn’t know everything, not yet, maybe not ever— although he couldn’t think too hard about the path of lies he was leading her down, not without panicking about when to tell her he had blood on his hands, that he’d accidentally broken into her life like a bandit, prepared to love her fiercely from before day one. To have her slim fingers sliding down his cheek was enough to make it all well to the surface. What she deserved. What he didn’t.

“Does that answer your question?” he asked, voice tight.

She paused, but nodded, her fingers lifting away. “Can I tell you about Joffrey?”

Sandor nodded, his heart in his throat. “You can tell me whatever you want.”

So she did. And it nearly broke him, nearly wore away the blockades he’d put up around his darker instincts. He had to stop picturing himself hitting the boy, again and again in his mind, and focus on the Sansa of it all. The despair she had felt, the way she’d been convinced that her family wouldn’t help her. The little moments she’d picked out to herself: taking long showers to hide, running them cold if Joffrey came in so he wouldn’t join her. He listened to her describe how trapped she felt, even if she was in a beautiful dress at an elegant party. How the Baratheon mansion was always chilled and quiet, so she felt she had to muffle even her tears. How Joffrey or his mother would criticize everything she ate and said, until she ate less and less, said less and less. Became less and less.

Sansa told him how Joffrey had hit her, apologized, convinced her not to tell. How he’d done it again, this time insisting that no one would care since she hadn’t turned on him the first time. How quickly her life had become hiding bruises, taking shallow breaths when he’d kicked her in the ribs, refilling Joffrey’s drink so he’d be too drunk to rape her. She didn’t say it in those words, of course, but her allusions were worse than hearing it straight out. And yet she was brave enough to tell Sandor, not knowing what his reaction would be — and Sandor did have a hard time biting back his anger, even though he’d known or suspected everything already.

She didn’t mention the diary.

She did mention the night she’d left: her brother Jon had been away at school, and hadn’t been a part of the slow phasing out of family contact. When he’d returned from a break and asked about her, the Starks had told him that Sansa had been calling less and less. They were worried about her, but she was an adult, who always claimed everything was going well. They’d called and been ignored, and had given Sansa the space she’d asked for, with her three younger siblings demanding the rest of their time. It wasn’t that her parents didn’t love her, Sansa explained, sadly. It was just that she’d pushed them away, and they trusted her. With Arya and the equally-wild Rickon causing trouble in school, and another brother whose disability required constant physical therapy, they simply hadn’t noticed how quickly their contact with her was changing.

Jon, with fresh eyes after several months away, knew at once. He’d shown up and been turned away, without seeing Sansa (“I didn’t even know he was there,” she said). He called the house phone every night for a week, until Sansa was the only one there to pick up. By then she didn’t have a cell phone, or any energy to leave. Her body was weakened, starved, a map of pain. When she heart Jon’s voice, she burst into tears.

Jon had sprung into action, borrowing their dad’s old truck to show up in the middle of the night. She hadn’t wanted to risk packing, so Jon scooped clothes and books into a bag, but she’d asked him to donate everything, keeping only the sweatshirt he gave her that night. Everything else felt tainted to her, and after that the legal shit kicked in, and she’d been swept up in trials and family time after that.

Sandor quietly realized that that must be where the diary had come from, the donations. He thought he owed Jon, the man he’d once dismissed as some ritzy law school kid, the biggest thank you he’d ever owerd anyone.

“What’s the thing you always wanted to do the most?” he asked finally, when she’d exhausted herself from remembering. She’d started to cry a little, so she had finished speaking from his lap, her last few words mumbled against his chest. He’d kissed her and told her he was sorry, told her she was brave and strong, and they’d been quiet for a long minute before he asked the question. The afternoon was creeping away, still hot and moist, the shadows moving to a new part of Sansa’s fine-boned face. Stranger had wandered off, splashing into the river, and coming back to nap at Sansa’s feet while she was talking. He rolled onto his back now, spraying sun-warmed water droplets over their legs. The air smelled like jasmine and pizza and wet dog, but Sandor wasn’t complaining. “When you were trapped there?”

She pursed her lips, looking thoughtful. “Well, I’ve done a lot of that stuff. I’m eating food I like, I gained some weight back, I started a job where I can help other people. I guess… it’s stupid.”

“It’s not.He’d started stroking her wrist with his thumb, his hand clasped over hers where she held it to his chest. He’d been petting her gently for long minutes before he realized, but he didn’t stop. “I’ll tell you one.”

“Okay,” she sniffled, relaxing into him. His heart was full of her confessions, but that made him afraid of what to share in return. She was so precious to him, now and already, and he didn’t want to scare her away just yet. And yet he couldn’t not tell her anything, couldn’t take anything else from her — no matter how willingly she thought she was giving it — without giving something in return.

“Mine is stupid,” he said, poking her until she smiled. “You know I was locked up for a minute, right?”

She nodded, her face cautious.

“We had a weekly movie night. It was always an awful movie, but it was better than nothing.” He paused for a minute, remembering how frustrating it had been to hear people shouting through yet another action movie, when all he wanted was some better form of escape. “I wanted to pick the movies more than anything.”

“Did you get to?” she asked.

“No.”

“I never finished learning to drive,” she whispered in return. “I was getting my license when I moved in with Joffrey, and he said I shouldn’t learn, because of the drivers. He just didn’t want me to get away. I used to dream about driving and driving. Wherever I wanted.”

She kissed him this time, leaning her forehead against his for a moment. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t ask where, just got up to follow.


	13. Chapter 13

Sandor didn’t ask where they were going, and he didn’t need to. She told him lefts and rights and he drove them, suredly, through town.

They wound up at a thrift shop that had been erected in an old bowling alley. Laminate wood flooring interspersed with loud carpeting gave away the building’s origins. The aisles were vast and disordered, every one revealing a new set of smells and secrets. Sansa lead him, giggling, past a battered taxidermy moose and an antique trunk stuffed with scarves, and around to a wall packed with shelves full of DVD, Blu-Ray, and even VHS cases.

Sandor raised his eyebrows and whistled as she held her hands up, Vanna White-style. “It’s a fucking Blockbuster back here,” he said, reluctantly impressed.

“Hell yeah it is,” she crowed, triumphant. “I’m obsessed with this place, I keep coming back just to see what weird stuff they have. You’d never guess half the stuff you can find in here.”

“Definitely not,” he agreed, craning his neck back to look at the expanse of them.

“Well,” she asked, “where would you like to start?”

In the end they bought almost two dozen movies, more than enough since Sandor didn’t even have a shelf set up yet. Sandor grabbed the blockbusters he’d missed in jail, plus a few movies he’d never heard of with directors he liked, and Sansa threw a few of her favorites in, mostly romantic classics with names like Sabrina and To Catch a Thief. Lastly they grabbed some comedies, a few seasons of some sitcoms, and a food documentary they both agreed looked delicious.

Afterward was better: Sandor was no chef, but his mother had made a fair shepherd’s pie, and he put one together while Sansa unwrapped and arranged their finds. She contributed a wine he had never heard of called Malbec, and and it was absolute heaven after such an emotional day to just snuggle up and start from the silliest movies. It was good to just laugh, although Sandor eventually became aware of a growing unhappiness in him. It wasn’t just hearing the details of what Sansa had been through. No, he had pictured it already, a thousand times by now. He’d tortured himself with it before even knowing her. It was something else. It was clear now how relieved she felt, how much more free and easy it came to her to be with him. Her life was lighter, now that she’d shared the load properly with him, and he couldn’t help but feel though only one of them had unburdened themselves of the secrets between them.

It all but confirmed his suspicions when Sansa fell asleep against his shoulder, the softest little snores escaping and being dwarfed by Stranger’s from the corner. And even asleep — or maybe especially asleep — she looked carefree, younger and even sweeter, none of her newfound found fire on display, unless you counted the amber burn of her hair.

He wormed his way out from under her, feeling guilty. He thought he _should_ feel guilty. He had betrayed her already, and maybe there would be no coming back from the talk they had long needed to have. Even if she could forgive him, which he doubted, with so much honesty and trust from her side… surely her family would at least raise some objections. Her brother Jon seem to have his head screwed on straight, and Sandor knew how it would sound to him.

_You lied to her the whole time, not telling her what you knew. You could have had a real shot with her and instead no one will believe you didn’t use her own memories against her to win her on purpose. You murderer creep._

He must have unconsciously been banging the dishes around as he washed them, berating himself, because Sansa stirred on the couch. “Sandor?”

“I’m here,” he called softly, and came back into the living room. “Did I wake you up?”

“Sadly no,” she murmured, stretching her arms up and smiling sleepily. Just that innocent stretch set his heart to racing, and he knew he was a doomed, doomed man. A bad man. A man who would continue to do his worst.

He bent over the back of the couch to kiss her, his hand stroking down her arm and again, floating to her chin to cup it, gently. He held her in place for a split second while his lips, upside down, parted hers. She responded easily, happily, deepening that guilty twinge inside of him. She opened her mouth, and her stale breath was the most entrancing thing ever tasted.

They broke apart only so she could turn toward him, scooting up onto her knees so she could lean across the back of the couch, improving their awkward angle. 

The glow of the TV lit her from behind, so Sandor knew exactly where reach to grasp her waist, his hands nearly meeting around her. It was a physical reminder of the terrible power that he had over her, and it was enough to make him shift away, but she followed. Despite himself his hands traveled, reaching up to gently cup her breasts. They fit into his hands as though made to fit, like how her tongue slid neatly under his own, how her blood seemed to be rising to match his.

Curled into his body like a question, her sleepy heat sang through him. Sandor’s mind made itself up for him and he braced himself before hefting her up, plucking her off of the couch and into the air. She laughed, wrapping her legs around him, and he set her down on the back of the couch, arms keeping her tight and close. Her legs were long enough to reach the floor from here, and the way her thighs had to part to let him closer was enough to send his nerves singing.

Sansa’s hands broke the barrier of clothing first, slipping the back of his shirt away from his skin as she skimmed the contact upward. He tried not to groan just from that, hips canting into her so suddenly that he shifted backward, wanting to give her the option of de-escalating.

For a moment it didn’t seem like she would. Surely she’d felt his erection, the wanting that coursed through him, stealing all the air from the room. But for one sweet moment her body followed, her kiss going frantic and wet.

And then she pulled away. Sandor backed up immediately, clearing his throat and trying not to look at Sansa, because to look at her was to see her kiss-ripened lips and hand-tousled hair. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she murmured, and the feeling of having betrayed her was as solid as his dick still was, his good and bad halves warring before he released her waist. She caught his hand, kissed it. “ _I’m_ sorry. Is it… is it okay, if we wait?”

“Yes please,” he bit out, almost too quickly. “I mean, not please. But yes. Let’s wait.”

“I just want… I don’t know. A little more time. I just don’t want to have some breakdown, I want to feel really ready.”

He nodded. He’d half-assumed she would have had sex again since Joffrey, some part of her self-experimentation. Hell, he’d seen people who’d gone through less spiral through scores of men and women, and not blamed them a bit. But if she hadn’t let another man touch her yet… he really didn’t want to sully her with his hands.

 _Make up your mind_ , his brain hissed at him. He wanted to fuck her, he shouldn’t, he didn’t care if he shouldn’t. At least she had temporarily made it up for him.

“Thanks,” she said, sounding shy now, and he sighed internally at himself for making her feel any doubt.

“Sansa, I’d love to do anything you’d like. On any timeline. I was just…” _Give her the truth_ , he thought, then amended it to _give her_ some _truth_. “I just feel like I haven’t shared as much as you have yet, and I don’t want you to learn more about me and regret everything.”

She quirked her mouth, but didn’t respond, instead standing up fully and stretching. “So tell me something,” she said finally, matter-of-fact. Behind her the DVD menu screen cycled through an animation loop, over and over. PLAY, it said, next to her waist. SCENE SELECTION, it said, cut off by her hip.

He had to start somewhere, so he started with his family, building the blocks that might help her understand the worst things that were still to come. They ended up in the kitchen, Sansa perched on the countertop like a little bird, while he paced around her. He told her about his brother, his father, the sister who had left them all behind and how badly Sandor had wanted to follow. He told her what he remembered of his mother, the fear he lived in as a child, the highlights of Gregor’s rap sheet.

“Makes sense,” she offered, finally. “I mean, from what I’ve learned at my job, any kind of abuse or violence stays in families and communities really often. It’s essentially all your brother and father taught you, and so it’s what you had to learn to survive.”

He nodded. “I’ve been doing some classes lately that make me think about how great it would have been to channel that in a healthy way. Too late now, I suppose.”

They’d moved to the other side of his small kitchen, where Sansa had planted herself in the corner so she could smoke out the window. He’d stilled his nervous energy, mostly, and was leaning on the countertop across from her with his arms crossed. She kept glancing at them, which certainly helped balance the dark mood that discussing Gregor usually put him in.

“Is your brother still in jail?” she asked, innocent, and Sandor sucked his breath in.

Here it was. Half of the horrible truth that she didn’t know. He could just say no. Maybe she wouldn’t have any followup questions, and it was true, besides. “No, he’s dead,” he managed, steeling himself for her to leave.

“I’m sorry,” she offered, still watching him carefully.

“Don’t be, I killed him.” He snarled it, and turned away, too cowardly to watch her face. He found his whiskey and a glass in the cabinet and pulled them out, not looking away from his pouring. “Self defense, but the court didn’t believe I’d taken every effort to avoid killing him, so I still got charged and took a plea for aggravated assault. They gave me five to eight years. I only did a third of it, with time served, thanks to overcrowding.” He paused for a minute, sipping the burn of the whiskey down before refilling the glass. He could feel her eyes on the back of his neck. “I guess they didn’t think I would be a repeat offender.”

“Of course not,” she whispered, prompting him to finally turn around. It took all of his courage to look at her face, and when he saw it, it was sad. Her face was paler, sure, but she met his eyes with an empathy he didn’t feel he deserved. “Sandor, you were protecting yourself from your lifelong bully.”

“I killed my brother. You go straight to the seven hells for that.”

“Fuck your brother,” she said, her voice rising, shocking him so he stood frozen in place. Now he saw how her expression had changed, become darker and harder. “Don’t you know how much I wish I could have killed Joffrey? How many times I wished I was stronger?”

She reached out. It was a shock to him, not only that he’d come within the reach of her arms without realizing, but also that when she reached her fingertips to his face, it was to wipe away a wetness that he hadn’t known had escaped his eyes. He bit his scarred lip, unable to believe her capacity for survival, forgiveness. He’d always thought himself the ultimate bully: he was the one who’d ended someone’s life, after all. But to hear her place them in the same category… it was a balm he didn’t deserve.

Especially since he hadn’t told her about the diary. He was tempted to. She’d responded unbelievably well to his confessions already. But maybe it was enough for one night, to confess to murder.

Sansa tilted her chin in a way that he recognized, stepping in to give her the kiss she’d unspeakingly demanded. It became frantic fast, Sandor sinking into her comfort, Sansa making a defiant effort to distract them both from everything that had been laid bare.

This time Sandor was the one to pull away first, staring at her in utter disbelief. “I think I made you up,” he whispered, thinking of a diary and a lonely man and the half-explored depths of her forgiveness.

“I think I’d put out if that were the case,” she pointed out, and he laughed, and then it was just cigarettes and whiskey and quiet kisses until the clock said it was well past time for bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure I love writing this weird depressing fic lol. Gonna make sure to make it way happier soon! I’m glad almost everything is out in the open....


	14. Chapter 14

Even though their dates tended to stretch on for entire days, Sandor was still a little shy when it came to contacting Sansa. Every time he spoke to her, she was fresh out of court or still emotionally connected to whatever she had done that day, her life seeming much more important and official than his own life of staring at walls, arms crossed.

So he was surprised he hadn’t thought of it earlier, the first time he offered to teach her to drive. Sansa lit up, nervous energy translated into fluttering hands as she jumped around, embracing him, worrying aloud.

“It’s fine, it’s easy. Any idiot could drive,” he said, balancing her with a hand on her hip. “You’ll see. It’s all mental.”

“I know,” she said, “that’s the problem. I’m so in my head about it, I’m years behind. I never want to bother anyone though, are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Sansa, any time I spend with you in a confined space is a bonus,” he said. “You should know that.”

She laughed, but he wasn’t kidding. Their first lesson was in the parking lot of a grocery store, where Sansa had a full on panic attack when he asked her to make a U-turn. They left the car in the lot, half in a spot, and got some ice cream before continuing.

She was a quick learner though. And Sandor found that he liked teaching. When she understood something he explained, he felt as though he had achieved the same thing. Never before had he appreciated the subtleties of shifting, and he was determined to see things through her eyes. It was also a great excuse to drive her to work, overseeing her steering until they pulled up outside, when they would switch back so he could take the car home. He became her ride to work, though she drove the whole way.

One day he worked at the bail bonds place across the street, placed by their insurance company in response to some recent threats. If he craned his neck, he could see the courthouse, made less foreboding by her unseen presence inside.

Both of their schedules were pretty irregular, and it wasn’t until when he got off at three that he realized he had MMA in a few hours. He thought he could hop a bus and let Sansa take the truck if she needed to stay, but he’d have to let her know first, and she never kept her phone on in court.

He walked across the street and went into the courthouse to find her. The security uniform helped: no one gave him a second look for his size or his scars, and the courthouse guard (a full-time gig, the lucky bastard) even gave him a nod at the X-ray checkpoint.

He had to ask three people before finding the right courtroom, but eventually he found one nondescript swinging door that promised to have Sansa behind it. He slipped in and sat in the back as quietly as he could, wanting to avoid drawing any attention to himself. He was half afraid that the judge who had sentenced him would be there, but it was Judge Cassel, a jovial looking man with a belly that pushed him back six inches from the stand.

The lawyer was standing up, addressing the judge. He craned his neck, and after a moment he was able to tune out the legalese and see her sitting there. She was next to her client, a quiet-looking young boy who couldn’t have been older than 14. A woman, presumably his mother, sat on the other side of him, but it was Sansa that he was turned toward. Sansa had her head tilted towards his, nodding and whispering in turn. She looked strong and brave and serious and beautiful, and his heart ached for every victim who hadn’t had her at their side.

It felt nice to just glimpse her doing her thing, not needing to interact in any way, seeing how good she was at providing comfort even without saying a word. Especially knowing what she’d been through, it was good to see her strong. When the judge asked the boy a question, he looked at Sansa before his mother, and then nodded. She gave the boy a quick hug, whispered something to him, and clipped quietly out of the room on her kitten heels.

He reached up as she passed, catching her lightly around the wrist. “Excuse, me, miss,” he started, and was rewarded with a professional peer from Sansa, which cleared into an expression of delight.

“Sandor!” she whispered, as enthusiastically as one could whisper. “Come out with me.” He followed her into the hallway, their hands now linked. As soon as the doors swung shut she tugged him to the side. “Just visiting?”

“Are you done?”

“No, sadly.” She pulled a face. “These judges need to make up their mind about shit before I drag my poor client all the way out here. Hopefully we’ll be done in a few hours. Why, are you off?”

“Yeah, I wanted to see if you needed the car?”

“I don’t know…” she frowned, the nerves flooding her face. It was so expressive: he could have watched the thoughts flit around behind her eyes forever. “Are you sure I’m ready?”

“What do you think?” He waited, smiling gently despite trying to keep a straight face. She was a good driver, just not confident in her abilities. He thought driving a couples miles down the road alone might be just the right bite-size boost. “Just to pick me up at MMA. It’s on Seven and Great Keep, you’ll be fine going that far.”

“I mean… all right! Why not?” She looked nervous, still, but determined. “Might be a few hours.”

“Oh, that’s alright. If you came early you’d just be bored.” He gave her a kiss and, hard as it was, he kept minimal for the sake of her workplace. “See you later?” He fished the keys from his pocket and dangled them in front of her. “Unless you need me to dare you.”

Sansa laughed. “Hand those over.”

There was a bus that would take Sandor straight to the studio, but it was only a couple miles over and he had time. After he found a bathroom and switched into his sweats and sneakers, he decided to jog the short distance, warming up his muscles slowly as his gym bag bounced between his shoulders.

The run was refreshing, the air of the turning season cooling his sweat as it sprang up. It was good to just run, in one straight line, no fences in his way. As he ran, he couldn’t help but look out for potential obstacles, but he had been right: it would be a simple trip, with an easy enough turn into the parking lot, as well. His only concern was Sansa’s parking of his large truck, but since it was what she’d been learning with, he thought she might already be better at parking than most amateurs who had been practicing for the same short amount of time.

His timing had been perfect: class was just starting when he arrived, and it was satisfying as ever to sink into his routine. The repetition of the movements, the ache in his muscles, even the nods to the people he saw every week. The studio had quickly become a place where he was familiar, at home, and he forgot Sansa was even coming to pick him up as he relaxed into it.

It was only far after his class was over, when he usually boxed in a corned while the youth class had begun, that he remembered. He’d wandered over to help the kids, or maybe a kid had wandered to him: either way, he was holding the bag against his chest at a kneel, offering feedback to young Mycah, when he looked over at the waiting area. A few parents were lingering, chatting as their kids ran and shrieked, a few women he recognized hanging around for the next female-only class. His workout partner Brienne often took the youth hour off to rest up before diving into that one in addition to the mixed-gender one they did together — Sandor himself coming in for multiple men’s and mixed-gender adult sessions, depending on the day. So he almost didn’t see Sansa, sitting on the benches and beaming.

When he did he stood up abruptly, causing the bag to move and Mycah to swing a kick right into his calf. “Gods-fucking-damnit,” he ground out, limping toward her. Mycah chased after him, apologizing. “It’s alright, kid, that was my fault.” He ruffled Mycah’s hair before giving his head a light shove, dismissing him. 

“Are you alright?” Sansa called, walking up to the low dividing wall between viewers and fighters. She still looked far too amused, damn her.

“I assure you I could beat that kid up if I wanted to,” he joked, pleased when she laughed.

“You liar. You’re great with kids. I had no idea.”

“How long have you been here?” he asked, still joking. He liked the kids, sure, but he thought he was a little rough with them. But maybe she’d seen how he sparred with them, pulling punches but not afraid to block each of theirs. It was nothing, really. He liked MMA, liked seeing the confidence it gave him be reflected in little eyes, hopefully early enough to help kids avoid the years of pain he’d suffered at a more confident brother’s hands.

She leaned against the wall, shoulders pressed forward, her breasts squeezed between her arms. He reached her, placing his hands on either side of the barrier before meeting her upward-tilting face for a kiss. It still stunned him: how she turned to him like a flower to the sun, how the dads of the kids in the room were all casting side-glances at her, and she only had eyes for him. _Him_.

“Ready to go?” she asked, once she broke away with a breathless smile. “I’ll drive.”

They didn’t drive anywhere for a while. It was too tempting to stay in the cab of the truck, making out slowly as the windows fogged up. From their spot in the parking lot, they could see people driving home, the sky dimming slowly, the streetlamps lighting up until their hazy little haven was lit from the outside. He’d pushed the center drink holder up, so she was snugged right up into his body, both wrapped up in the taste of each other while the world went on around them. Eventually she caught him up on her day, and he untucked her gently from his arm to take her home.

Sansa had been living at home for the first six months or so after Joffrey, and she was living now in a one-bedroom apartment on the nicer side of town. She’d admitted, embarrassed, that her parents paid for most of it, but Sandor didn’t judge her at all. He wished his parents had been able, had been willing to help him in such a way — and after what Sansa had been through, he didn’t blame her parents one whit for wanting her safe and comfortable, in a neighborhood not too far from the suburban mansions where the Stark family’s roots were planted. If anything, their ability to support one of a half-dozen kids so well indicated to him that she was used to better, which made him even more proud of the hard and far from lucrative work that she was doing. He liked the apartment more than his own, too, with its butter-yellow walls and dried lavender bouquets, its growing collection of houseplants and vintage Tupperware that Sansa couldn’t stop buying from their favorite weird thrift shop. It was worlds more cozy than his place, which only had Stranger to make it feel like a home. He’d have to go feed Stranger soon enough, so he declined when Sansa placed an order of Burmese food — she was always ordering new-to-him ethnic meals, but he’d learned to love sushi and curries and lahpet salads. He did agree to a glass of wine, though, and took over her couch while Sansa dragged a kitchen chair under her window to smoke.

“So why don’t you do MMA?” she asked finally, holding her cigarette with the hand that also clasped her wine, both things looking impossibly out-of-place with the elegant length of her fingers and deceptive innocence of her eyes.

“Do it how? I do, you saw me,” he said, a little confused, but happy to sip while she explained. He tossed his head back on the arm of the sofa, peering at her upside-down. She scooted down in her chair and pointed a toe, reaching him with it and attempting to scratch his head with her foot. “Stop it, I’m not Stranger.” He caught her foot and acted like he was going to yank her out of her chair, tickling the foot slightly until she was giggling helplessly.

“Shut up,” she gasped finally, gaining her breath. “I meant, you know, teach. You were working with the kids really well. And you’re good at it, you know.”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re _great_.” She smirked at him, drawing back up into her chair so she could ash out the window, without turning around to look at her arm. “All the moms picking up their kids were looking at you fight.”

He laughed this time. It was so similar to what he had been thinking about her — but then what she’d suggested sank in more. “Teach? I don’t know if they’re even hiring.”

“Then _start your own studio_ ,” she suggested, brightening at the idea. “Yeah! You could own the place, open it over on this side of town, and do kid’s classes. You were saying you were interested in the child enrichment aspect of things.”

“I— I guess I kind of was.” He’d never thought to phrase it like that, though.

Sansa was warming to her idea, though. She flicked the cigarette butt away so she could gesture more with her hands, nearly spilling her wine. “Oh, Sandor, I could bring my child victims over, too. We could even do some crossovers at my work, if you talk to my bosses, they’re constantly looking for community involvement and betterment programs. I bet it would really help kids like my client today a lot — even just having some normal thing to work at really improves a kid’s self-esteem, and I bet most assault victims would love to learn to throw a punch. It could help with confidence, or just be a great distraction.”

Sandor sat up, and she came to him, straddling his lap on the sofa while she kept talking — about the problems with the programs they’d used, the kids she’d met who’d needed something similar. There was a cautious bubble of hope rising in his chest at her words, words that he never would have dreamed up himself but somehow sounded _right_. He’d spent his entire prison sentence planning for something like this, but never seen something fit to take a chance on. If he could spend the day helping kids, wearing comfortable workout gear, and teaming up with Sansa… it was a dream he’d never dared to dream before.

They made out again before he had to leave, his mind buzzing. Even the sweet heat of her kisses faded to the back of his mind as he drove home: all he could think was _I could do it_.

With her at his side, he thought he could do anything.


	15. Chapter 15

“Hey,” Sansa said one day, when they were stopped down his street while Stranger peed into a bush, “Its my birthday next week.”

“Shit,” he responded. He’d never thought to ask: he’d practically forgotten about birthdays in the last few years. “Sorry, I mean, what do you want?”

She laughed. “I’m not telling you as some kind of gift grab. I want you to come to my party. My family always insists on having a grill-up for everyone’s birthdays, and I’m just required to show up.”

“I- okay.” He was seized with panic immediately: he’d never been someone to bring home to meet people’s mothers, and especially not when that mother came along with a half dozen siblings and a father, all of them Starks. But he’d do it, of course. He’d go, and they would be aghast, and she would come to her senses about him. But she wanted him there, so he would go.

She must have picked up on his hesitance, his suddenly-tensed shoulders. Stranger finished peeing and tugged them along, Sansa’s hand on his arm now. “I think it will be good.”

“It will be,” he promised automatically, though he had no clue how to deliver on that promise. “So what _do_ you want for your birthday?”

“What _don’t_ I want,” she joked, but her gaze on him went dark for a moment, sparking a response in his blood. He wanted her, desperately. He wanted her so badly sometimes that he barely made it back to his truck after some dates before he had to press his palm down into his lap, desperate to both quell his erection and to give into its aching demand.

Sansa seemed to sense his ailing. She went quiet, thoughtful, and linked her hand in his for the short walk home.

Sandor busied himself unclipping Stranger and refilling his water bowl, already wondering what you got for the girl who was everything. Sansa slipped her shoes off, disappearing into the bathroom for a moment while he perused his fridge face, which was covered in takeout menus.

“Hungry?” he asked finally, turning around to face the hallway, so she’d hear him. “We got Thai last time, so maybe we get a pizza from Vito’s?”

“Maybe later,” she answered, stepping out from the bathroom. She’d undone her ponytail, so her hair flowed loose and long over her shoulders. The light was dying fast, and Sandor had yet to turn all his lights on, so she was dapped in shadow, her sweatshirt abandoned so he could see her milky shoulders, the long plane of her throat.

It wasn’t like she’d stripped bare, but it was enough to draw him to her, staggering like a drunk until he could reach, could touch.

She leaned up to meet his kiss hungrily, the low pit of lust that always burned shamefully around her taking the opportunity to ignite. He could sense her wanting, powerful as his own, hidden behind a screen of shyness and shitty experience. But it was there, liquid and unseen, hidden away as her skin under clothing and shadow. He wanted to find it. He wanted to uncover it, her, stripping her of panties and sadness and shame all together. 

Sansa knew his need. She leaned into him, against him, inviting the press of him into the cradle of her hips, and he felt like he left a hot strip across her skin even through each layer. “Sansa,” he murmured without meaning to, chasing that line of her neck down with his teeth and lips and tongue. She moaned, gripping his shirt so hard that he was grateful everything he owned was cheap. Not that he’d mind if she ripped the most expensive clothes in the world, so long as they were coming off of his body, at her hands.

Sansa _mmm_ ed against his neck, and he threw caution to the wind, hauling her up into his arms. It was incredible how light she was, for being so much to him, no more than he’d lifted time and time again, but this time instead of unyielding metal, it was her warm, priceless skin.

“Take me to your room,” she demanded, and he laughed at her tone, despite himself.

“What happens in my room?” he teased, already beginning to carry her down the hall.

She sighed dramatically, covering his eyes so he had to stumble a little, pretending to trip on the rug so she shrieked. “Nothing if you drop me!”

“Too bad,” he said, dropping her onto his bed with a little extra force, just to see her shriek with laughter. He pretended to fall atop her, grasping her lightly when she rolled away with fingers that he wiggled up her ribs and under her arms. “Guess I’ll never find out.”

“Sandor!” she shrieked again, gasping for breath between her laughter. Stranger, attracted by her high-pitched noises, came bounding in and jumped on the bed. “Stranger!” Sandor had to laugh with her, both of them being happily trampled. Stranger got a good lick in, his enormous tongue covering Sandor’s ear with saliva.

“Okay, boy, that’s enough,” he managed, snapping and pointing to the door so Stranger hopped reluctantly down. “He can’t keep his paws off you.”

“That makes one of you,” she said, arching her eyebrows, and he took the hint.

“How’s this?” he asked, settling himself on his knees over her and reaching down. Slowly he ran his hands up her body, from the outside of her ankles to the press of her calves, the swell of her thighs. Even encased in the jeans she wore on her days off, he could feel the firm, lean lines of her legs, and he slipped his thumbs under the hem of her tank top before skimming up higher, baring her torso as he touched her, up and up. He skipped over her breasts, making her breath skip and her eyes heat up in protest, instead tracing his fingers over her clavicle and lightly over her throat. “You trust me?”

She nodded, not speaking now. The humor had drained from her expression, and she was just staring up at him, shirt askew, lace bralette tugged to one side to show the beauty mark on her left breast. He kissed it, then glanced back up at her. She’d closed her eyes, her lips parted around breaths that were already heavy. He had half a mind to ask her to open her eyes, to see that it was him and that she was safe, truly safe. But maybe that wasn’t for him to decide: he’d lied to her every moment, by omission anyway, and if she needed to close her eyes and focus to memorize his touch, to feel that his was different than the one she’d known before, he wasn’t going to argue.

He started retracing the lines he’d drawn with his hands on her skin, exchanging each touch for a kiss, until he was bowed over her, pressing kisses to the hipbone that had escaped her jeans. Without a word, she lifted her hips, letting him slip one thumb underneath to undo the button. Afraid he’d push her too far too fast, he switched focus, moving back to her shirt and helping her lift that over her head and tumbled hair. Shirtless, pants unbuttoned, she was spread out underneath him like an ancient offering. His eyes drank her in: flushed, eyes still half-lidded, lips starting to pink and swell with the fervor of his kisses. He paused in his ministrations to kiss her, properly.

Sansa smiled into his mouth, her tongue meeting his at once, to dance and tangle and drag in a heady sweep of taste and tongue. Slowly, still shy, she started to touch him in return. He propped himself up over her, dipping his forehead to her shoulder so she could touch his arms, his chest, without his gaze. Her hands got bolder, and he groaned when they reached his dick, tentatively stroking it through the fabric. It was enough to send him reeling, though, and he could tell the heat from his breath was dampening her neck. She turned her face blindly, meeting him in another searing kiss, while her hand started moving, again, again…

He ground down into her, unable to help the irresistible jerk of his hips into hers. At the same time he slid his hands under her bra, rucking the underwire up to get at her teardrop breasts. He’d barely ever glimpsed them before, and now he dipped down to taste them, taking one pale nipple into his mouth, reaching down at the same time to fumble her jeans a little lower. Just the zipper stood between him and all her skin now, just a zipper — 

“Sandor,” Sansa said, her hand stilled, her voice suddenly different. “Sandor.”

He pulled off of her at once, staring down at her, though it took a moment for the lust to clear from his eyes, leaving them unfogged. She was bright red and horribly guilty looking, already worrying her swollen lip between her teeth. “You want to stop?” he asked quickly, not recognizing his own voice for the rough scrape of it. His dick throbbed. Had he been a teenager, he would be convinced he was going to die of it, but Sandor was a grown ass man and he took a deep breath before rolling away to the side. “You okay?” He reached up, stroking her hair away from her face gently, careful not to touch her too much lest she cringe away.

She didn’t. She didn’t right her clothing, either, but turned toward him half-disheveled, body half displayed. He didn’t look away from her face, though. The red bloom was fading, revealing her expression of embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said immediately, and then backtracked. “I mean, be whatever you want. But it’s okay by me.”

“But-” she glanced down, away. She clearly didn’t want to to say it out loud, but he knew what she meant. His erection was still loud and proud between them, straining his pants painfully even as he willed it to go down.

“But nothing,” he said, firm. “You’re just hot as hell, he’ll go away.”

She giggled at that, seeming to relax a little. “He?”

“Well, he’s certainly not a she,” he said, mock offended. She laughed again, and he smiled. They propped their heads up, laying side by side facing one another, and he stilled himself to meet her eye contact. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, placing her hand on his cheek. “I want to. I just… maybe not yet.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He meant it, but he felt sure that she would never believe him. “Really.”

She shrugged, shifted as if to roll away. “Well, sorry. I’ll just go. Or we can order that pizza, if your mood isn’t totally ruined.”

“It’s not.” He paused, weighing his options. Then he went for bravery. “Can I give you an early birthday present?”

She paused and eyed him. “Not… him?” She grinned when he laughed, despite her clear hesitation.

“No,” he swore, reaching back for her hips, carefully. He gripped them, rubbing his thumbs down into the hem of her jeans one more time. “I just… if you feel like it, maybe we can take a little step. Not all the way. Just… you know. Maybe I can help you relax a little.”

“About sex? Or about you?” she asked, grinning again. She’d shifted a little toward him, clearly willing to overcome her hesitations, now that true sex was off the table.

“About every fucking thing in the world,” he said, matter-of-factly, and when she nodded he finally reached for that zipper.

Sandor had simply been following instincts so far, and he was pleased that they hadn’t worked against him yet. He truly wanted to just touch her, to give her what worship a broken man could. And when he undid the zipper, she let him this time. She canted her hips up, letting him slip them down her legs. She let him tug her panties down next, though she blushed again when he pressed kisses into the seam of her leg. 

“Are you sure?” she whispered, the transformation from the confident girl he knew to the shy one he’d been seeing underneath complete.

“Are _you_?” he asked, completely serious. He met her eyes until she nodded, then bent to his task.

Sandor had never been much of a Casanova: his face, his family simply wouldn’t have allowed for it. His brother had always shoved him at barflies, but Sandor had also had the good sense not to bring women he actually liked around him. He’d had plenty of sex, sure, but taking his time? Being someone’s lover? Learning what made someone tick so he could take his time to pull them apart - that, he was happy to finally do. It wasn’t just the aching physical and emotional loneliness of prison - it was every sexy dream he’d had in the past year, all at once, all wrapped up in auburn hair and pearllike skin.

He set out to his holy mission: to taste and uncover every inch of Sansa’s undoing. She was willing enough, wet to his touch, but her legs were held stiffly, belying her fear. He glanced up at her, holding her nervous eyes as he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh. She shut her eyes, biting her lip again, and he shifted his kisses inward, pressing one last firm kiss to her sensitive center. He mouthed her there, opening his mouth to kiss her dirtily, with tongue. She arced a little, her muscles tensing even more, and he stretched out on his belly to take full advantage of the small window between her thighs, gripping and rubbing her thighs as he laved at her. He wanted to relax her, massage, her, spread the sensations he could give her into an expansive, overwhelming wave. If he could help her relax, he’d do whatever it took, even if his tongue fell off in the trying.

He found the spot that made her shift and moan, and bombarded her with touch until her body finally, utterly relaxed, her hips jerking up as her legs went slack and boneless around him. He smiled, the gesture made filthy by its placement, drawing out her orgasm with another slow lick. His own balls were tight and whining, dick marking a wet spot against the cotton of his black boxer-briefs, but he ignored them entirely.

Sansa’s fingers tugged through his hair. He rested his cheek on her leg, blinking up at her. “Still doing okay?”

“Stop asking me that,” she grumbled, though her sleepy voice betrayed her lack of true irritation. “Gods, Sandor.”

“Mmm.” He smacked another kiss on her leg and sat up, unable to stop smiling as she stretched and stuck her tongue out at him. There was still a red blush across her chest, but she definitely looked more relaxed. She didn’t even cover up right away, instead fixing her hair first, settling it back into place before reaching to tug her bra back into place. “So, pizza?”

“What are the odds of getting Thai again?” she asked, faux-innocent, despite her half-dressed state. 

He heaved a large sign, mostly to make her laugh. “You always get what you want.”

And yet, it was Sandor who felt like he’d been given the greatest gift. He knew to keep it light and laughing with Sansa, who he thought appreciated that he’d been through something and was willing to go along with her down a carefully-lit path, filled with spontaneous games and flights of fancy. He wouldn’t scare her away with too much of his dark side, or too much of the feelings that flooded him now. Like he wanted to throw himself to the ground in front of her and keep this night forever, tell her how often he’d dreamed of this and how much better it was than his fantasy: like he loved her already, had loved her before sight, and that his love for the real Sansa was rapidly overtaking the love he’d felt for a sad, sweet stranger. He was glad they hadn't gone any further. It wouldn't feel right, without her knowing that she hadn't been a stranger to him since the day he found her diary.

Instead he adjusted his dick, give Sansa a kiss, and tossed her her panties before he headed down the hall to order Thai food.

Stranger, laying in the hallway, gave him a dirty look as he passed, but Sandor didn’t mind one bit.


	16. Chapter 16

The next morning started much the same way.

Sandor woke slowly, sure that he was still in a dream. There was a firm little ass pressed snug against him. He was already stiff, his dick nestled perfectly into the cleft between those two round cheeks. Sex dream. He was still in prison and it was another sex dream. He kept his eyes shut, determined to stay asleep and enjoy it.

He let his hips rock forward, feeling his way without looking. The sweet pressure increased against his neglected dick, and his hand reached out of its own accord to grip the swell of the hip in front of him.

Sansa sighed, and his eyes snapped open.

He was rewarded with a face full of hair, a wave of the sweet, stale sweat that had cooled on her body. She’d slept over before, and vice versa, but that had been about tentative cuddles and a plan for breakfast. It had never been like this - his body subconsciously trying to make good on the eventual promise of sex that had arisen last night. He tried to roll away a little, since their talk of the future hadn’t meant the next morning, but his dick didn’t know that, and even the slide backwards was torture.

And then Sansa rocked back. 

He held still, insure if she’d meant to, but he couldn’t even tell if she was awake. It thrilled him to think her sleeping instinct was to rub against him. But he couldn’t let her. Her conscious mind’s fear and apprehension was more important than some sleepy grinding. So he squeezed her hip and eased himself up, slowly sliding out of his covers. He had to kick a little to get Stranger to unpin his legs, but a moment later he was safe in the bathroom with his sleep sweats yanked down.

It had been difficult to fall asleep last night, neglected as his body had been, but the warm lull of having Sansa in his arms had overpowered any discomfort. Now his dick was reminding him of what he’d forgotten, and demanding its due. He wrapped a hand around himself and felt the pulse of his blood pounding, matching with the feverish insistence of the lust that had driven him from bed in the first place.

That first touch made him groan, simply to be able to feel the pressure, to wrap his hand around his dick for the first time since he’d started hooking up with Sansa the night before. He was tempted to make it last, to draw out that desperate feeling, since he knew it would lead to a more satisfying orgasm.

And yet. He wanted to be quick, to tame the beast and get back to bed, back to snuggling Sansa. So he didn’t waste any time, fisting his dick harshly with just the sweat of his palm. He thought he could come just from this, scratch his itch quickly and fiercely, each quick stroke taking him closer to the ledge.

The door creaked, and his head jerked up, just in time to see Sansa’s sleep-mussed head pop into view.”Sandor?”

He froze, unable to even move his hand away, burning with guilt. Sansa had pinked up too, her hand clasped over her mouth as they stared at each other.

“Sansa, I-“ he was startled into silence when her hand slipped down from her mouth. She was smiling. “Sansa?”

She turned the smile fully on him. It was mirthful, mischievous, far from the look of shock and horror that he had braced for. “Oops.”

“That’s what you get for barging in,” he offered weakly, in an stab at lightheartedness that he only attempted because of her smile. It quirked at his words, and against all odds, she stepped further into the bathroom.

“My apologies,” she said, and he turned to her, finally dropping his hand as hers came up to replace it. She was a vision in one of his faded green shirts and a pair of her peach panties. A goddess. He shifted and sighed, tilting his forehead down to meet the top of her head. Between his eyelashes, he could see her bite her lip, and what he couldn’t see, he could feel. Her hand was smaller but just as determined as his had been, matching the strength and speed of the strokes he’d been punishing himself with a moment ago.

“It’s okay,” he ground out, though he could have come in a moment from it. “You can go slower.”

“Like this?” She tipped her face up, so they were joined at the forehead, eyelashes nearly tangling as she blinked into his face. He matched her smile, distracted though he was.

“Mm. Mm-hmm.” He reached around her to grasp the counter, arms boxing her into place. She had less room to maneuver, but that was okay. She was dragging her fingers up and down slowly. Her forehead had wrinkled into a frown for the first time, but before he could ask her what she was thinking, she pulled her hand away and licked her palm. The swipe of her tongue was a startling pink, and the sight of her dragging it over her skin was shockingly erotic - and all in the name of jerking him off. _Him._. When her hand snuck back into place, he had to choke out a laugh. “Gods, I—”

She didn’t seem to notice, but Sandor caught himself so suddenly that his adrenaline spiked, sending a roar through his ears and tightening in his balls. She made a pleased noise at whatever reaction she’d sensed, doubling down hard. He gasped and ground forward, mind a blur of thought and sound. He came in an instant, Sansa’s hand slowing slowly until he’d spattered her stomach with milky ropes. “Fuck.”

“Almost,” she laughed, turning to the mirror to wash up, still in his arms. He rested his chin on her shoulder and stared at her, keeping his hips canted back so as not to touch her. She scrubbed her hands and stomach with the washcloth, rinsed it, and handed it to him. He had to draw away from her to clean up, and she winked at him before leaving the room. He shook his head and looked back at the mirror. Without her sharing his reflection, it was a whole lot uglier. And he’d almost told her he _loved her_. Like an idiot. He couldn’t offer her his love, not when it was tainted.

But it had seemed to natural to say. LIke he’d already said it a thousand times, like there was nothing to stop him from letting it slip out. And so it almost had.

“Lock that shit up,” he told the ugly fucker in the mirror, and left to take Sansa home.

He didn’t see her again until the family barbeque the Starks had set up for her birthday. The interim few days had been torturous for him, just enough time to agonize over who he’d meet and how much they’d hate him and what he could wear. In the end he’d reached for the same clothing he’d met her in. That wasn’t weird, right? He hadn’t done more to buy party-appropriate clothing, and besides, they seemed like good luck.

Sansa had assured him that he would look fine, at least. He was her ride, so he brought a back-up shirt into the truck with him to pick her up, just in case she wanted him to change last-minute.

“You’re overthinking things,” she told him as soon as she got in the car, his anxiety apparently obvious to her. She reached out to smooth his shirt, which worked to soothe him a little. He didn’t want to pollute her birthday with his grumbles, though, so he just gave her a kiss and handed her the overly-sweet coffee he’d picked up.

“Happy birthday, by the way. You look beautiful.” She did: she was wearing a long dress that wrapped in a bow at her waist, emphasizing a lean hourglass that he ached to uncover. He wasn’t sure what a dress that wrapped a woman like a present was called, but the way it tied emphasized her shape in the classiest way possible, sending him into the dirtiest thought he had.

“Thank you! It’s DVF!” she offered, seizing the coffee to her chest so happily that he had to laugh, broken out of his one track train of thought. “Mmm.”

“The coffee’s not your gift, girl.” He didn’t know what DVF was, but she certainly pulled it off. “I’ll give that to you later.”

“Oooo, secret present.” Sansa started poking around happily, hunting through his glove compartment, then reaching for the central console. He swatted her hand away before she could open it, and she wiggled in place happily, settling into the seat to sip her coffee as he steered them out of the city.

The Starks lived in the hills, in a community of mansions that were small for the area, yet larger than any home Sandor had ever been in. With so many kids, though, Sansa assured him they did more than fill it. She described her family home as loud and loving, with endless sports teams and pets tromping through each room until it felt as small as a shack. He bit back some jealousy, instead thinking of how nice it must have been for Sansa to land back there after Joffrey.

She definitely seemed happy to be going back, if only for the day. She had pointed out all the landmarks she loved along the way: a childhood friend’s house, a climbing tree, the long driveway to a lot that, abandoned half-finished, had become the secret spot for local teenagers.

It amused him to think of Sansa breaking the rules, even if she was only trespassing to drink beer. He was sure she’d felt plenty daring, but as someone who had wreaked violence and committed the sin of fratricide, it sounded like innocent fun.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you to be careful of Arya,” she remembered, as they found a space to park. “She’s the worst.”

“The worst how?” he asked, prepared to take an enemy. 

“Just sister stuff. But she might try to scare you off. Oh, there she is.”

Sandor hid his smile. The girl running out to the car was the size of a bunny rabbit, smaller than his dog. It was strange to see Sansa’s looks reflected in such a small, athletic package. Arya didn’t quite have Sansa’s beauty, but she definitely seemed to have her own fierce charm.

“Is this him?” she asked, yanking the door open. “Ugh. Happy birthday!”

“Happy birthday!” Sansa said back, making Arya laugh into their hug.

“It’s not my birthday, dummy!”

“Damn straight, so leave my boyfriend alone.” Sansa pulled back and stuck her finger into Arya’s face. “I mean it. Nice Arya.”

Arya rolled her eyes, but was clearly amused. It seemed like she enjoyed the newer, feistier side of Sansa as much as Sandor did. His heart cleared a little seeing the sisters banter. Whatever else happened today, it was a pleasure to see her interact with her family. He just hoped it would stay pleasant. 

“Fiiine. Sandork, you ready for this?” Arya tugged Sansa over by the hand, taking his next. He let himself be pulled, bemused, toward the door. Sansa winked at him over Arya’s head.

“I guess so,” he rumbled, and let Arya pull him toward the sound of a party.


	17. Chapter 17

All the doors of the house were open wide. Sandor could smell meat cooking even as they came up to the doorway, its huge frame making it so he didn’t have to stoop for once. Arya tugged them fast, and while he could have resisted her, Sansa was laughing, so he let himself be dragged forward by the girl, only catching glimpses of a hallway studded with family photos, a wide kitchen with a central island, a sitting room with the largest sectional he’d ever seen.

Arya tugged them into a backyard that was a thousand times more homey than Margaery’s had been, despite its similar size. Jasmine bushes bordered a gleaming deck, with squashy seating that surrounded a long table. An enormous charcoal grill and a fire pit stood beyond, the last signs of humanity before the property turned into a promenade of tumbling wildflowers and bird baths. A gravel trail disappeared around a little copse of trees, promising places to wander and sit and go to be alone. It was like a small park more than anything, and an absurdly charming one, at that.

The scent of the grill permeated through the sweet air, and when Sandor glanced at the table, he saw that it was loaded with side dishes, from fruit salads to skewered vegetables to one enormous cake, left naked but for a ridge of raspberries and the white icing that dripped down its lemon-yellow sides.

But most of all, he noticed the people. And they’d also noticed him. Arya let him go and Sansa took her place on his arm, beaming around as people starting coming up to wish her a happy birthday. Sandor froze in place and tried to look friendly as they approached: so far, it had to be a good dozen people, although he’d been warned that the Starks themselves made up most of that. He met an uncle who seemed cool, a bitchy aunt and her runt kid, a couple of Sansa’s younger brothers (one scrawny and wild, one solemn and chairbound), and then the easy ones were over.

Next he met her parents — Catelyn was a dignified woman who only nodded at him, and Ned gave him a half-decent handshake that Sandor supposed he meant to be firm. He nodded back in return, shook hands, and joined in the talk of how exciting it was that it was Sansa’s birthday, how nice the weather was, how lovely it was that he could join them, and so on. He thought he was doing pretty well — Sansa did most of the talking, anyway, and he’d never expected anyone’s parents to like him. They all clearly loved her, so much, and were more protective of her for what she’d been through. It was hard to imagine that Sansa had been convinced they wouldn’t come to help her. It just spoke of Joffrey’s evil. And the Starks had seen the effects firsthand. No wonder they were wary of her next boyfriend, bigger and scarier and with more of a past than the last man to hurt her.

It was her older brothers that he was most worried about. Robb, who was the closest to Sandor in age. Jon, the one whose actions, both in saving Sansa and accidentally delivering her diary into Sandor’s hands, had impacted his life so much. Robb seemed genial enough, ruffling Sansa’s hair and introducing his twin toddlers happily. Jon didn’t look much like the rest of his family, but Sansa had warned Sandor of his origins, and so Sandor took the black hair and scowl in stride.

Jon nodded at him, much like Catelyn had, leaving Sandor to nod back and purse his lips. Sansa was chatting at Jon, who appeared to be listening, but Sandor didn’t miss the way Jon kept glancing back at him. Arya circled back with a tray of something she called bellinis, and Sandor sucked one down fast before excusing himself to the restroom.

He found the cool marble oasis off the front hallway and barricaded himself inside with a sense of relief. Sansa had patted his arm when he excused himself, but hadn’t read the growing unease on his face, luckily. He thought he just needed a minute to pull himself together. He’d thought he could tell her later, in his own way, his own time. He’d even been prepared to do so. The gift he’d gotten her… it was a diary, blank and beautiful, to be presented with the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He’d give her the gift of honesty, and if she wanted it, the gift of freedom from him. He hadn’t realized how hard the party would feel to get through first. It was like everyone knew already, the way they seemed to be holding something against him. But it was clear he wasn’t good enough for their daughter and sister, even without them knowing a thing. She’d escaped one horrible man, only to bring home Sandor, who looked and sounded and acted... like Sandor. No wonder they weren’t welcoming him with open arms.

 _Suck it up. It’s to be expected,_ he thought to himself, and splashed his face with cold water in the sink. _Just get back out there and make it a happy birthday for Sansa._ And, determined, he slipped back into the hall.

And ran right into Sam.

“Sam!” he choked, just as Sam gasped “Sandor!”

They stared at each other for a long moment, without speaking. Then Sam tried to speak. “What are y-”

“Come here.” Sandor pulled Sam by the arm into the bathroom and slammed it shut again, locking it this time. Sam looked alarmed, and Sandor remembered too late that he’d been trained to avoid being cornered by prisoners. “Sorry. I just want to talk.”

Sam eyed him, then relaxed a little, leaning against the sink and crossing his arms over his belly. “I know you’re cool, it’s okay. What I don’t know is what you’re doing yanking me into bathrooms.”

“I’m… here with Sansa. I didn’t realize you’d be here.”

“I’m a friend of the family!” Sam exclaimed, then poked him in the chest, making Sandor smile a little. “You hardly need to detain me.”

“Just going to look for Sandor!” he heard Sansa call from close by. He held a finger to his lips, staring meaningfully at Sam, and unlocked the door to poke his head out.

“Sansa?”

“Oh, hey,” she whispered, ducking back out of the coat closet across the hall to kiss him. “I’m going to sneak out for a cigarette, it’s okay. I’ll see you back out there.”

He nodded and watched her run off, remembering for a minute the way he’d found her, hidden to one side of a party smoking just as now. It sank down into his heart, when he turned to face Sam again, that he could lose her just as easily.

Sam had unfolded himself from the sink and was smoothing out his unfashionable shirt, looking dignified and put-upon. “So am I free to go?”

Sandor abandoned his own dignity. “Just don’t… just don’t tell them,” he begged quickly, quietly. “Just let me tell her later.”

“Tell her what?” Sam asked, sounding more confused now than ever. “You-”

“Sansa’s smoking!” the littlest brother, Rickon, hollered from outside the door. “Mom! MOOOOOM!”

There was a rustle of motion outside the door, and Sandor started to hear quarreling out front. Sam laughed and slipped past Sandor, who had forgotten to lock the door again. “That’s fucking hilarious, get her Catelyn!” he called, disappearing around the corner to join the squabble. Sandor got a glimpse of him and Jon bending their heads in to talk to each other, and walked quickly in the other direction, thinking fast.

Ned was one of the last people left in the backyard, placidly flipping burgers throughout the chaos being piped in through the house, front to back. “Staying out of it?” he asked Sandor without turning around, seemingly using eyes in the back of his head.

Sandor nodded and sat down where Ned could see him. “Absolutely.”

“You’re not a smoker?” He shook his head. Ned seemed surprised. “We wondered where she got that from. I think Catelyn was kind of hoping to blame it on you.”

 _That’s the one thing you won’t have to hate me for,_ Sandor thought about saying. Instead he shrugged. “Can I grab you a beer, sir?”

“Ned,” said Ned. “And I wouldn’t say no. They’ll be out there arguing for ages. Big family like ours, everyone wants their turn to speak.”

They cracked one open together, listening to the murmurs as Arya’s voice rose above the rest, though they couldn’t hear whose side she was on.

“Here, try this,” Ned said, holding out a slider. “I test them with little minis. That way you get the perfect bite.”

“The perfect bite, huh?” Sandor smiled, but his heart ached. By the end of the day there would be no point to being charmed by Sansa and her family’s little idiosyncrasies. He had to tell her tonight, and that would be that. He couldn’t be sure Sam wasn’t up there now, telling everyone.

He couldn’t even wait until that night. Sandor braced himself, pouring beer-flavored courage down his throat and praying it would solidify into steel. He had to give her the chance to leave him, to have half a birthday without being weighed down by a liar who tried to make love to her. He owed her, had owed her, hated himself for how much he should have already said.

Ned drank with him in silence until the rubberneckers started trailing back from the disagreement in the front drive. Arya and Rickon, seeming smug, ran off together into the foliage. Bran parked himself on one corner of the deck and took his shirt off, tilting himself back to catch a tan. Sansa tromped back in with her mother, the picture of injured dignity. Her eyes were bright, but when Sandor scanned her to see if she’d been crying, she only looked amused.

“You okay?” he asked her under his breath, when she sat next to him. “I need to talk to you.”

“Yes until you said that,” she scoffed, poking him in the shoulder. “Gonna dump me on my birthday or what?”

 _No, you are._ He stood and held out his hand, ignoring Cat’s even gaze as he escorted her back into the house. “I just want to see your room.”

“Oh, yeah! This way.” She took his hand and guided him. The house was different, but the déjà vu was real: this was how they’d met, this was where he’d first opened his mouth and heart and life to her in person. Maybe it was fitting that this be where that all ended. Hopefully someone in her family could drive her home once she kicked him out.

“It’s this one,” Sansa said, oblivious. She tugged him into a room that overlooked the back yard, and he could see the full spread of trees and flowers and people from up here. Her room was still a predictable little-girl pink, covered in lace and frills. There was clothing storage everywhere, a coathanger in one corner practically creaking under the weight of vintage purses and long winter jackets. Dried bouquets lined the shelves above a little white desk, which was stacked with more feminine desk organizers than he’d ever known existed, all stuffed with gel pens and bangle bracelets. She even had a four-poster bed, and the only thing he saw that reminded him of the fierce Sansa he knew was the bedside table, where she had a stack of books left from her time between Joffrey and her own apartment: _The Gift of Fear. When Things Fall Apart. Why Does He Do That. Be Here Now. Siddhartha._ The last few seemed a little different, but were the most paged-through. 

“It’s nice,” he said, distractedly. It was certainly going to be the pinkest room he was ever dumped in. He reached out to touch the books, rubbing his thumb over a cover absently, when he nudged it to the side and the diary revealed itself again.

The fucking diary, which called to him like an old friend, the wolf on the cover making his heart suddenly full and glad. He couldn’t help staring at it, compelled by the pull that it had had on his life.

“Yeah, I got it back,” Sansa said, quietly, following his eyeline.

“Got it… back?” he repeated, dumbfounded.

She nodded, staring up at him. Her words nagged at him, but he was too confused to figure out why. “What did you want to tell me?” she asked, still quiet, utterly serious.

His mouth opened and closed. Then everything clicked. “You already know.”

Her family’s distrust. Sam’s nonchalance. Her discretion in what she asked him about his past. But how had she not said anything?

 _Same way you didn’t say anything,_ he told himself, harshly. “When?”

She didn’t respond, watching the changes in his face worriedly. It was like she was afraid _he_ would be mad. “First, can you just tell me why you didn’t tell me?” she ventured to ask, her voice small.

He barked out a laugh. “Are you kidding? Sansa. If you hadn’t had a single good thing and then you had a fucking _angel_ , wouldn’t you do anything to keep her for yourself? Even knowing full well she belonged to Heaven and not to you? Wouldn’t you do anything in the world?”

She bit her lip but didn’t move toward him. He thought she was about to cry, and it was all he could do not to run away then and there. “I was going to tell you tonight,” he added, racing through the words so they tumbled from his mouth erratically. “I was going to give you a diary and tell you, I swear. I know it’s too late. I know I should have done it a long time ago.”

“Why didn’t you?” she persisted. “Once you knew I liked you, you could have told me.”

He shook his head. “I felt like a fucking pervert stalker creep. I still do. I had no right to your story and I took it anyway. And then I took advantage of you from the moment that we met and I didn’t own up to it.”

“If you took advantage of me, I took advantage of you.” He was sufficiently shocked as to shut up and listen. “I knew… I knew who you were when we met. I was curious about you, I guess. I’d heard your name from Jon and Sam — the diary thing did weird me out, at first, but then I heard what you did to Joffrey.”

He covered his face with his hands. “They all know, then. Your family.”

He couldn’t hear her nod, but sensed it, anyway. “Of course they do. I had just gotten out of hell, Sandor, they would have looked you up anyway. I wasn’t planning on any of this happening, but I heard from Margie that Bronn was your friend, and I thought I’d meet you and see what you were like.”

“You had him invite me?” His head was reeling.

“No, I just heard he was bringing his friend Sandor… there aren’t a lot of Sandors out there,” she confessed, shy. “And none like you.”

He shook his head again and let his palms slide back down his face. “I can’t believe it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I guess I was curious about the guy who knew me so well that he had already come to my rescue.”

“ _You’re_ sorry?” Sandor had never felt the way he did before, both giddy and as though he was going to burst into tears. “Sansa. I’m sorry. I’m sorrier than I’ve been for anything in my life.” He’d caused black eyes, smashed teeth, bar glasses, cars. He’d shot his brother in the goddamn guts and never cried about it for a minute. But this scratch on Sansa’s heart… he would have beat himself up forever. The fact of her perfection, the balm of her forgiveness, the shock of her confession… it all tangled up in his self-hatred and regret and washed, at least for the moment, away.

She let the moment go on, the silence stretching between them without any lies to get in the way. “You’re not mad, then?”

“Of course I’m not fucking mad!” He took her hands then, drawing her to sit with him on the bed. She didn’t snuggle into his lap, instead holding onto his hands and meeting his gaze soberly. “I just can’t believe… there’s nothing between us now.”

“I hope there’s not _nothing_ between us,” she quipped, managing to sound coy.

“That’s not what I— nothing bad. Nothing secret.”

“No secrets,” she repeated, and leaned forward, tentative, to kiss him. His brave girl.

Sandor grasped her hair in both hands, tugging on the curls and then sliding his hands down the sides of her neck to her shoulders, where he grasped her gently, pulling her body into his. She tilted toward him like a flower to the sun, a sob coming from her out of nowhere, and then a laugh. He kissed her again, and again, and harder, and she rose up on her knees so he could yank her forward, slip her knees around his waist, her skirt’s layers unwrapping and wrinkling against him. He slid one hand up the exposed line of her inner thigh, wanting to touch her skin and feel the truth of it.

“I love you,” he said, remembering suddenly that he hadn’t before. Now it seemed so stupid: he loved her, he should tell her. She grinned into his mouth, her breath hitching up again.

“You love me?” She drew back to seize his face, her fingers slipping through and tangling the hair of his beard. “Say it again.”

“I love you,” he offered again, his heart light with the words. He kissed her nose, since she was smiling too wide to kiss. “I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you too,” she confessed, eyes bright. “I’m so glad you found my diary.”

“I’m so glad I punched that piece of shit,” he agreed.

“Want to fool around in my childhood bedroom?” she asked, changing the topic just in time to read his mind. He shook his head, though, smiling a little wryly.

“Hell yes,” he told her, “but let’s wait until everyone isn’t wondering where we are.”

She laughed and took his hand again, letting him steer her up and out of the room, tugging her dress down as she followed. “Fine, but you owe me. And I want a new surprise birthday present.”

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” he swore, and took her back downstairs, into the swirling sound of family.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! SUPER SHORT chapter, just wanted to finish up the party and get to the AFTER PARTY bow chicka bow. ALSO VERY EXCITING POLL AT THE END....
> 
> I’m already plotting my next fic for when A Little Farther Down The Line is done, so please read the prompts in my end notes and let me know which # I should write next!!!! (I won't start it until this is done, so there’s plenty of time to let me know! And if you want to write any of these prompts feel free and let me know which ones you're using!!)

The rest of the party went well. Sandor was a little uncomfortable, knowing that his darkest secrets had been bared to everyone already, but at least he wasn’t there dishonestly. The Stark family’s cool tolerance of him made sense now, and was more than he felt he deserved.

He let Sansa slip into the crowd when her friends started arriving: Margarey came porting an enormous basket of wine and beauty products, Bronn behind her. It was good to have someone else he knew on his side, shoulder to shoulder as they worked through fresh beers. It was good to just blend in, not feeling like he had been invited under false pretenses. He was almost comfortable, which really said a lot. Jon sidled up at one point to ask Bronn about something, and Sandor found himself on the border of a small circle of guys, all swapping stories and grilling recommendations. Jon glanced at him a few more times, and Sandor met his gaze each time.

The chance came when Bronn and another guy took off to smoke a joint further back on the property, Arya appearing out of nowhere to trail behind. Jon turned his stare to Sandor, not moving away. “So,” he said, without preamble.

“So,” Sandor said, refusing to get nervous in front of a skinny prettyboy.

“I think I owe you a thank you,” Jon offered, surprising the hell out of him. “My family, anyway. For doing what we all wanted to. And Sansa seems happy lately.”

“I owe you the thanks for that.” Sandor cleared his throat, a little uncomfortable, but not wanting to shy away from the conversation. “It seems like you did a hell of a lot for her.”

“Anyone would have gone to pick her up,” he demurred. “And delivering her diary into your hands was totally accidental.”

“Save her is what you did.” _And save him_ , he thought, without adding.

Jon shrugged. “I’m her brother. And I don’t even live around here. It would be nice to know there was someone to look after her that was around more. Someone she spent more time with.”

“I can look after her,” Sandor confirmed. “Or at least play backup to her looking after herself.”

Jon nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. He was surprisingly strong. “Just don’t kill anyone else.”

Sandor sputtered, but Jon smirked and moved on. It took Sandor a minute to recover and start breathing normally again. When he did, he saw Catelyn sitting across the deck, sitting in clear view of the men’s quiet conversation. She lifted her chin when he saw her, not looking away, and he resigned himself to another awkward conversation.

Sure enough, she patted the seat next to her, and he found himself drawn to it as if by some irresistible gravity. He plopped his butt down next to hers, finding that he towered over her even at a seated height. Catelyn fixed him with a Look — the Starks all seemed to have one — and waited for her to speak.

“I worry about her,” Cately said, baldly. She didn’t fuck around with the small talk or the side-talk the others had: he liked her immediately. Sandor coughed to cover the chuckle she had startled out of him, lest she consider it disrespectful. 

“I understand,” he said instead, choosing the words he thought were safest.

“That goes double for you,” she added. He glanced over at her, and she met his eyes. They were Sansa’s eyes, exactly alike, but with a cool well of strength that came and went in Sansa’s. It was like a glimpse into the future.

“I understand,” he said. They watched Sansa together. She was giggling with Margarey in a corner, her hair bright in the sun and her laugh strong and clear. Bronn tilted his beer toward Sandor and raised his eyebrows, and Sandor gave him a nod that meant _in a minute_.

“She’s brave, you know,” he added, still staring out at her. He thought about her — learning to drive, dedicating herself to helping others, living on her own, tugging him by the hand into a game of truth or dare that had changed his life. “Fierce. And… she chose this.” He realized it as the words left his mouth, solidifying in his mind as he said it out loud. “She chose her life now, and everyone in it. Try trusting her.”

“I do trust her,” Catelyn admitted, sighing. “It’s the rest of the world I don’t trust.”

“Fuck, do I get that.” After all, the world had done nothing but hurt her before. Her boyfriend had hidden her away and hurt her. A prisoner had come out of nowhere to claim her. And Sandor knew better than most how bad the world could be. If she were his daughter, he thought he’d be a lot less calm than Ned and Catelyn were being about it. He laid his hand between them, on instinct, and Catelyn surprised him by taking it and giving it a squeeze. Her palms were dry and cool, her bones delicate.

“Did you really teach her how to drive?” she asked, her voice colored by dry amusement.

Sandor chuckled. “I did my best.”

She laughed, the sound surprisingly youthful. “You could have done worse. She took us to dinner the other day, did she tell you?”

“No!” He had to bite back his smirk. “How’d it go?”

“Pretty well,” she mused. “But Ned nearly had a heart attack.”

He laughed again, and she smiled at him. Their eyes met, and Sandor found more warmth in her blue ones than he’d seen before.

She patted his hand to let him go. “I’m glad we could meet you.”

“I’m glad I could meet any of you,” he answered, and meant it. Being allowed access to Sansa, and past that, entrusted to drink with her family? It was definitely more than he’d ever thought he’d deserved. And now, newly blessed with her love, wrapped up in its bounty, it was nearly more than he could stand. 

He stood to his full height, dwarfing Catelyn’s frame. She shaded her eyes and squinted up to give him a small but earned smile. He met it with one of his own, thinking how many times he’d already smiled that day, despite the drama. How much he’d smiled in general, since Sansa came into his life.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Sansa glanced over at him again. If she was surprised to see him with her mom, she didn’t show it. Instead she beckoned with her hand, quirking her eyebrows in a gesture that left him hustling over to join his love and their friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Sansa moves to a small island where she meets Sandor, a quiet widower. The people of the town are protective of him, as they know about his tragic past. Can she integrate herself into the community and earn Sandor’s heart, as well as the approval of all those who care for him?
> 
> 2\. Sansa doesn’t go with Sandor during Blackwater… but he returns the morning of her wedding to Joffrey to give her another chance to say yes. What does she choose and what are the consequences?
> 
> 3\. Sansa’s parents guilt her into signing up for a therapeutic horseback riding retreat in the plains of Montana. Sandor is an equine therapist whose past anger issues have lead him to a simple life. 
> 
> 4\. Sansa is the suicidal housewife of the wealthy Lord Joffrey. When she tries to drown herself, she is rescued by Sandor, a local fisherman and rough-water swimmer. But she’s not sure she’s grateful for his help.
> 
> 5\. Sansa’s father runs the freak show at a 1920s circus. One of their performers, Sandor, is known for withstanding incredible pain. Only Sansa knows that he feels it all.
> 
> 6\. Sandor is a lord, whose family name has enabled him to marry a wealthy baroness and father several children. But his marriage falls apart fast when Sansa is hired on as a laundress…
> 
> 7\. All Sansa wants to do is forget about her ex-boyfriend. But when she books a solo trip to Paris, she finds that she’s sitting next to his old bodyguard, who’s also trying to move on. And from the plane to the hotel to the Eiffel Tower, they just can’t stop running into each other.
> 
> 8\. Sansa is a baker with an eating disorder whose star is on the rise. Sandor is a third-generation butcher who’s after her biscuit recipe.
> 
> 9\. Sansa is so excited for her retreat in Tulum. Jungle, beach, and no boys… until she sees the hot yoga instructor…
> 
> 10\. Sandor is a cop in a small town. Sansa is the only survivor of his worst case yet. When he retires early, she overcomes her PTSD to come to the banquet honoring him.
> 
> 11\. Sansa’s a nurse and her boyfriend is a hot firefighter. Everything is perfect until a fire leaves his face covered in burns.
> 
> 12\. In 1960, bad kids were often sent to asylums. Sansa’s aunt and Sandor’s dad decide they’re bad kids. Teen AU including love in a hopeless place, Sandor as Sansa’s protector, and a daring escape.
> 
> 13\. Little Bird is a member of a cult started by her boyfriend’s psycho mother Cersei, and left her entire family behind to follow the Lannisters into the woods, where incest and violence begin to poison their paradise. Still, she’d never question Joffrey and his family… out loud. Sandor is a cult deprogrammer, hired by the Starks to save their brainwashed daughter. 1970s AU
> 
> 14\. Sansa moves into an apartment in a converted Victorian building fleeing Petyr, and immediately develops a crush on the building’s gardener. Little does she know, Sandor owns the entire landscaping service, but he’s an ex-addict who finds peace in the dirty work. They’re friendly, but don’t really talk, until Petyr comes back and Sansa kills him in a struggle, with Sandor the only witness.
> 
> 15\. Oneshot where Sandor is Sansa’s limo driver and picks her up at the airport.
> 
> 16\. Sansa buys Winterfell to fix up as a BnB. The handyman she hires is strangely resentful. Turns out Sandor’s family once owned the estate, and he thinks she’ll never love it like he does. But Winterfell isn’t all Sansa falls in love with…
> 
> 17\. Sandor is an artist who lives in an aluminum garage on the outskirts of town. He doesn’t need anything other than his art and his dog… until they find Sansa, the unlikeliest girl to be living in the woods behind his house. He’s gruff and reluctant to care for anyone else. She’s half-starved and a hundred percent stubborn. 
> 
> 18\. Everyone knows that Sandor has been dead for years. So when Sansa falls sick while traveling, her husband Tyrion thinks nothing of stopping on the Quiet Isle for some assistance.
> 
> 19\. A Little Princess AU: Sansa and her younger siblings are sent to an orphanage when her dad goes to war (Catelyn is dead and her older brothers are at war as well.) Things are fine until Ned Stark is presumed dead. Sansa is old enough to work outside the home, but has to come back to sleep in the attic each night. Sandor lives in the house next door, where he cares for soldiers with amnesia… and keeps Sansa company through the windows every night.
> 
> 20\. Sansa is Queen to Joffrey but in typical Lannister fashion, he only has eyes for his sister Myrcella. But an heir must be made, and there’s no one better for the job than Joffrey’s pet dog…


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a whole fuckton of love and smut because I love you!!! we did it!

Sansa drank and danced all night.

Bronn dipped her, Sandor kissed her, and Margaery lavished her with girly gifts. Her brothers kept refilling her cup, and her parents chased her down to eat. When they cut her cake, she was beaming with alcohol and joy, and for the first time Sandor didn’t mind having his photo taken, since his arm was around the most beautiful girl in the crowd.

He stopped drinking midway through the party so he could take her home safely, and the more he sobered up, the more beautiful she got. Sure, her cheeks had flushed to the red color of her hair, which had turned from curls into tangles, and she smelled like cigarettes and smoke from the grill and spilled sloshes of champagne. But despite all the packages he helped her load up the truck with, he still felt like he was bringing home the best thing at the party.

She was stumbling a little when he finally hoisted her into the cradle of the truck cab, Ned hovering anxiously to make sure she landed safely.

“Really, Sansa, it’s not your sixteenth birthday,” Ned said mildly, watching her settle herself ungracefully into the seat.

“It’s not? I’m out,” Sandor joked without thinking, but was gratified when Robb chuckled before lifting one of his daughters for Sansa to kiss. The last-standing Starks had trooped out to see them off, and Sansa doled out boozy kisses and tight hugs to everyone who wanted to say goodbye. Sandor was surprised to find himself wrapped in a few hugs of his own, first from Sam, and then from Margaery.

Jon shook his hand, and Catelyn gave him a dry, motherly kiss on the cheek that stirred something young and longing in him that he hadn’t felt in years. And then Ned gave him a nod and it was time to take Sansa home.

She hung half-out of the window, waving, until Sandor snagged the back of her dress and tugged her back in. “Seatbelt, birthday girl.”

Sansa sighed happily and scooched down on the seat to hug him next, aiming a smooch at his cheek that barely landed on his beard.

“Seatbelt,” he said again, smiling, and she stuck her tongue out before detaching herself enough to click it into place. 

“Seatbelted!” she said, but immediately stuck her feet in his lap. Sandor slipped his thumb under the straps of her heels, kneading a little at the arch. She let her head fall back against the window, regarding him with blurry eyes. “That feels so good. I love you.”

It swelled inside him, violent and true. His chest felt like he’d eaten a thousand things that gave him heartburn, like the adrenaline-shock of his sentencing, like he could cry as soon as breathe. “You can’t say shit like that while I’m driving,” he said instead of _I love you too_. He saw her hurt expression, and hastened to explain. “I’m just not used to it yet. Feels like it’s gonna burst my heart.” He had gripped her foot harder without realizing, and he loosened it a little, rubbing absently in apology.

“Try it,” she suggested. “Try to get used to it.”

He paused at a red light to glance at her. Her lips were stained with the remnants of her lipstick and the bow tied around her waist had wilted and loosened. He ached to tug on the bow and open the dress like a gift, to climb atop her and swell her mouth with kisses.

The thought came that _maybe he could_ , that there was nothing else in the way between them but her finding her comfort, no secrets he still held behind. He’d wait another hundred years for her to be ready for anything more physical, but he could do that. The hard part, the hiding things from her, was over. And he’d never even needed to. He felt foolish for hiding, knowing now how forgiving good people could be. Although he’d never run into enough to know that before, and surely Sansa and her family were the best of the best.

“I love you,” he tried, a thrill going straight through him like a bolt of light. It was dark out, and he could see Sansa’s smile in the glow of the light that went green above them. They wound out of the hills, Sandor lost to his wonder.

 

They went back to her apartment to unload her gifts, since it was late and Stranger had been fed and walked hours ago. Sandor insisted on carrying the lion’s share of the packages, and then when Sansa struggled to wobble up the stairs in her heels, on carrying her as well. She shrieked with laughter in his arms, causing him to clap a hand over her mouth to preserve the sleep of her neighbors. Sansa licked the palm of his hand and he dropped her on her couch in a dramatic overreaction. She shrieked again, and he hastened to shut the front door, smiling despite himself.

“Come on, little bird, it’s near one in the morning,” he said, without any true admonishment in his voice.

“Little bird?” She busied herself unstrapping her shoes and picking through her hair, tossing pin after pin down onto the table as she found them. “Grab me that box.” She pointed with her foot, hands still rooting around in her limp curls.

Sandor brought over the shoebox that sat under a bench by her door, where she stashed magazines and takeout menus. She scooted over, and he tucked himself under her on the couch, handing it over and taking over the inspection of her hair. He found one pin more at the crown of her head and loosened it carefully as she sorted through the papers. “Your squawking just now. You’re like a little bird that wakes the whole building up.”

She snorted with laughter, then pulled a menu out triumphantly. “Korean fusion! They’re open until two.”

“Let’s do it,” he agreed, tossing the pin down before digging his phone and wallet out to hand to her. “Get whatever you want.”

She ordered wings and japchae and kimchi fried rice, then instructed Sandor to bring out the bottle of rosé in her fridge for the wait. He brought her a glass of water instead, ignoring her eye roll.

“Here you go,” he said, shifting through the gifts until he found his own. He’d slipped it out of the center console and added it to the pile, but he fished it back out and handed it to her now.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said when it was unwrapped, the red-leather diary with gilded pages tumbling into her hands. “Thank you!”

He shrugged. “I feel bad now, you deserve more. And I would have given you some whole speech.”

“We had enough of that earlier,” she said, but smiled and squeezed his hand. “I can’t wait to fill it with better days.”

She opened more gifts until the food arrived, until she was curled in a nest of sweaters and bath bombs. Sandor ran downstairs when the food arrived and returned to her standing, swaying a little in front of the open window. His heart skipped a beat, but she was just smoking, dancing a little to the soul music she’d put on while he was outside.

“The moon is huge,” she said, turning to look over her shoulder at him. Framed as she was, by the peeling wood frame, the glow of the moon, the spill of her hair, he stood transfixed. Smoke curled from between her fingers as she smiled at Sandor, every plane of her face perfect to him.

He cleared his throat and turned the music down a little before laying out their feast on her coffee table. “Come on, little bird, if you don’t eat something you’ll regret it in the morning.”

“I don’t think I could regret anything in the morning,” she said seriously, and he was startled into looking back up at her. She met his gaze steadily, her blush gone.

“Eat,” he said again, not letting his mind touch that possibility until she was sufficiently sobered up. As buzzing with bubbly booze as their day had been, he thought she might get tired out of nowhere, and he would be happy to tuck the both of them into bed.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she retorted, but sat cross-legged in front of the table to eat. “It’s my birthday.”

“Not anymore,” Sandor stuck his wrist in her face so she could see his watch. She wrestled it away, giggling. “No more orders from Lady Sansa.”

“You should call me that more often,” she teased, and dug in.

They ate in silence, listening to Otis Redding and Solomon Burke and Sam Cooke tell them about love. He never wanted this day to end — it might be Sansa’s birthday, but he thought it might have been the best day of his life.

“Ready for bed?” he asked, when they’d eaten their way through half of Korea and Sansa yawned twice in a row.

“Are _you_ ready?” she shot back, and he made a show of rolling his eyes, giving her a feather-light push between the shoulder blades to propel her down the hall.

“You talk this big game, girl, but you’re going to be snoring the second your head hits the pillow.”

“I am not,” she insisted, and yawned again.

He chuckled and drew the covers back. “I’ll turn the music off, shut the window, lock the door and all that. Grab you some water for the morning. Just hop in.”

She did, sliding into the spot he’d cleared for her, but she rose up on her knees before he could cover her again. “Sandor.”

“Sansa?” His hand brushed through her hair, slipping through the silken strands that caught on his rough hands. She smiled up at him, sweet as sugar, eyes alight.

And she reached for his jeans.

Sandor let her thumb the buttons open, not taking her overture too seriously. They’d make out a little, go to bed. Sure, their relationship had been heading slowly toward something more, but he still didn’t think this would be the night. They’d already said their _love yous_ , already met her family and faced the truth. He wasn’t about to tempt fate by add anything else to these twenty-four hours.

His dick had no such rationale, however. It rose to the occasion without his thinking about it, responding to her eyes on his as much as her hands, dipping into his boxers.

“Sansa…” he ground out again, wanting to warn her of the cliff she was about to push him off of. He thought she’d laugh and lay back for bed. Instead she freed his dick and leaned forward to swallow it, her eyes flicking down so she was all eyelashes and wet heat.

Sandor sucked in a breath so quickly he nearly choked. Her mouth was electric and damp and small, working down and down until she had swallowed nearly all of him in sheer determination. He forced himself to hold still, letting her adjust and shift and find some comfort, the muscles in his neck jumping as she hummed and gulped into place. She took hold of him with her fist, keeping him in place as she started working her way off, then on, her mouth filling with saliva around him as she started sucking his dick with shy determination.

“Fuck,” he added, gathering her hair up in his hand, letting her guide his arm back and forth with her head. “F-unnh.” The sound he made wasn’t much of a word, but it had been years since someone had touched him like this, longer since someone had touched him with love. And the heat, the physical press, they had him groaning and gasping before he could stop himself. She looked up then, seemingly emboldened by his desperate, filthy noises.

He snapped and dragged her up the next time her mouth popped free, pulling her higher up on her knees and sinking to his own before her. With his knees on the carpet and hers on the bed, he was below her, and her hands found his shoulders for balance as his skidded up and down her body. He grasped her hips, then slid them up her stomach, then found the tie he’d been dying to untie all day. He ripped it open like she’d opened the gifts in the living room, peeling it back off of her torso and shoulders like so much wrapping paper. Her skin glowed when exposed, pale in the light from the hallway and the voyeuristic moon.

He was eye-level with her belly button, and all he had to do was tip his forehead to rest against her lower stomach to put his nose level with the little cotton bow on her panties. He paused for a moment to nose against it, smiling when he heard her giggle, and started to tug them down.

She let him slide the panties to her knees, where he left them, too eager to fuck around with wrestling them off. He gripped her ass, fingers pressed plush into the flesh there so she wouldn’t fall as he dove into her cunt, hungry to lick and taste and touch.

Sansa cried out and grasped his shoulders. Her nails cut crescents into his skin, wrinkling his shirt. She spread her legs as much as she could, sliding lower as her knees parted, stopped only by the elastic waistband of her pushed-down panties.

“That’s it.” Sandor didn’t recognize his own voice, both rough and cooing all in one. “That’s it, open up for me.” He gripped her ass harder in one hand and pulled the other away, diving forward again with his tongue and following with his fingers. Nudging past her soft skin, his large, rough fingers found a swallowing, slippery wetness that resisted him, accepting just one large finger as he redoubled his licking, devouring. Sansa wobbled against a moan and dug her nails harder into his shoulders, trying not to slip as he assaulted her with his mouth.

Sandor stood quickly, his knees cracking, and moved to sit beside her on the bed. She turned to him and he helped her shake her panties down her legs before pulling her around to straddle over his lap. She laughed and resettled herself, gripping the hair on the back of his head, which had finally grown out enough to hold onto. He stopped to palm her breasts, still trapped in her bra, before he cradled her into him, controlling her balance so she could twitch and lean and moan without worry.

He was rock hard, fossilized, blood pumping through his dick and the pulse of his forehead at once as he consumed her. It was on the edge of being painful, but he couldn’t touch himself and support her both, not when he was so close to working her open, the petals of her sex opening to his second thickset finger. She made a noise like a strangled gasp, and he knew it was a good sound, but it was enough to startle him back into the consciousness that had dropped away in his hunger.

Suddenly, he felt like a dog. He was seizing her like a thirsty man, lapping at her like she was his last drop of water in a world of desert. He felt bile rise, spoiling the sweet taste of her that flooded his mouth. He slid his fingers from her, leaving her stretched pink and pretty, shaming him further with her debauched perfection. 

Sansa slid down into his lap, kissing his scarred cheek when he turned his head away. It didn’t feel right to touch her, inside or out, with hands that had harmed and defiled, had been shackled together, had pulled the godsdamned trigger. He wasn’t good enough, no matter if she thought she loved him. Maybe it was too much. Maybe it was too fast. Maybe it was still more than he deserved.

She clutched him, straddling him so he was wrapped in an embrace of her long limbs. “Are you okay?” she mumbled, against his temple. She drew back to look at him, and he forced himself to meet her clear blue gaze.

“Are _you_?” He stroked her thigh, unconsciously seeking her touch as a matter of course. Part of him wanted her to absolve him. Part of him knew that wasn’t in anyone’s power.

“Sandor, I’m great. I want to. You don’t want to?” Bless her, she didn’t look upset or exhasperated or relieved to be off the hook. She was looking at him with an eye-crinkling affection that was bordering on concern. 

“I just…” he shrugged, unable to explain his wordless fear. A fear of her leaving, of her being too good to have. A fear that she had accepted and forgiven him too much already, and he’d mess up in some way, having burned through more goodwill already than he’d had a right to ask for.

He couldn’t get the words out. Instead he stroked her hair, petting her like the comforting creature she was. She let a quiet hum escape her, leaning into it, and then she pulled away, laying herself down like an impossible present. She was naked now, but for her bra, which had slid around so that her dewdrop breasts were trapped between straps and clasps. She undid it, letting the offending garment slide to the side so she was utterly bare.

“Now you,” she murmured, reaching up for him even as her nudity struck him dumber than ever. Mute, transfixed, he let her slide his shirt up and over his shoulders, shrugging it off when she pushed it high enough. 

She touched him, hair and muscles and scars, and at a nod from her he was yanking the rest of his pants back too, shaking them off and dropping the heavy denim to the floor.

“That’s it,” she said, and opened her arms so he could crawl into them. He fit over her carefully, not wanting to crush her but not wanting to hide the weight of him and all of his sins, wanting to feel the warmth of her pressed flush against his body. She smoothed her hands down his back and canted her chin for a kiss, which he gave her, slow and deep until it became ragged and gasping. 

One of them was shaking.

His dick nudged against her inner thigh, as though it knew the way, and was perfectly willing to go on without him. Still he waited, letting her reach between their bodies and help it seek true. She tugged him to meet her, and he bit his lip hard, watching her eyes to see what would be in them.

He saw love, and trust, and above all else, a desire that startled him. She wasn’t just ready. She was truly eager, even demanding. He’d thought reclaiming this part of her life would be scary, take care and consideration. What he hadn’t known, until he looked in her face and felt her slip, sick of waiting, down and onto his dick, was the ferocity in it. What a rebellious, restorative thing it would be, to become an active participant, equally driven by desire.

Her body’s pressure around him sent Sandor’s nerves singing. And yet she was barely taking him in, and he ached for more, so he pushed her back up, using his dick to drive against her on the bed. He braced himself over her, finding a comfortable hunch that could support his weight as he worked over her body. She arched up and he grabbed underneath her, holding her hips up to his as they met and met again.

It was perfection. It was the fit he’d been looking for his whole life, from his teenage fist to the people he’d tried to trust. It just fit. Their bodies, moving together. Their breath, heating the air between them. Their souls, bound by words he’d always been afraid to speak before now. It was so simple: he fucked her. She rose up against him, her face a mask of fierce bliss.

It wasn’t because it had been so long, either: by rights they were both out of practice, and it should have been awful. But it was perfect, painfully perfect, and Sandor would have come at once if he hadn’t doubled down on jerking off since meeting Sansa. 

“That’s good,” Sansa said, voicing his thoughts in the simplest of terms. “That’s… fuck, it’s so good.”

Hearing her swear spurred him on. He started pressing open-mouthed kisses wherever he could land them between the swirling eddies of hair along her neck and shoulders, mouthing gently in contrast with the staccato of his snapping hips.

He lost track of the time. It might have been forever, or maybe he really had lost any self-control, and it was only a handful of long-lasting moments. Either way the time was lost to the taste of her skin, the quiet sound of soul music and her uneven breathing, the sweet clutch of her cunt around him.

When she rose under him again, blindly seeking the pressure of their back-and-forth, Sandor came back to clarity. He had a job to do, after all. 

His hand was too big to wedge between them, so he pulled off a little so could see all of her stretched under him – and more importantly, to reach her clit again. He wanted her to feel what he was feeling, to be sure her nerves were singing the way that his were.

She wasn’t loud when she came. She just shuddered, once, turning her head to the side and screwing her eyes shut, mouth opening on something silent. Sandor found himself watching, unsure if he should look away, so personal and poignant did it feel. But he couldn’t help but take her in, beautiful and coming and naked underneath him, clamping down tight with her orgasm.

He reared away, overcome. He barely made it before spilling over his palm, pulling away and off of the bed to clean up quickly before making a mess of her sheets. He flipped off the lights and music and was back in a moment, joining her where she lay, eyes shut and smiling. She reached up and took hold of his thigh loosely. He slid his arm under her shoulders, and she turned her head toward him, met his gaze in the dark.

“You pulled out,” she said, her smile flirtatious now. “I should have told you I’m on birth control... I wanted to feel you.”

His cock gave one last twitch. “Gods, you’re going to kill me.” She swatted at him, and he gave her a playful little shove back, which with his strength, rolled her onto her back. She laughed, and he kissed her, even though she was still laughing and he sort of kissed her teeth. He didn’t care. He’d never been happier.

“You’re a filthy girl, Sansa Stark,” he informed her, tucking her back under his chin where she belonged. She curled up, knees bumping up against his torso. She tucked one hand under her pillow and wrapped the other one around him, making his chest feel warm and tight. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“About me being a — ” she giggled again, the exhaustion of a long, wonderful day finally audible in her voice. “I’m kidding. No, I just want to sleep. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight. And happy birthday.” Sandor gave her a squeeze and shut his eyes. He didn’t think he’d dream. Nothing his brain could conjure up would top this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well???? I'm so excited about them banging you guys. plus the poll is still going guys! check out the notes from the last chapter for full info. I'm blown away by everyone's responses! right now the winner is #7:
> 
> All Sansa wants to do is forget about her ex-boyfriend. But when she books a solo trip to Paris, she finds that she’s sitting next to his old bodyguard, who’s also trying to move on. And from the plane to the hotel to the Eiffel Tower, they just can’t stop running into each other.
> 
> if you want another, vote! some are close to beating it! xoxo :)


	20. Chapter 20

Sandor started sleeping over more nights than most. The nights he was at his own apartment were mostly dedicated to catching up — both with Bronn and his laundry. Stranger’s bed, bowls, and stuffed pony were all at Sansa’s. The stuffed pony was from her, actually. She’d whipped it out from behind her back upon coming over once, gleefully sharing in Stranger’s delight. It was the size of a Chihuahua, but in Stranger’s mouth, it was petite.

Now it had its own corner, and Sandor kept an extra work uniform in his truck. The little ways their lives were merging weren’t invisible — each slip into something more familiar thrilled him. Every time he used the copy of the key she’d given him, he didn’t take the turn of it for granted. 

And he didn’t mean to impose, but once he’d moved in, he found a few things that needed fixing. 

“My landlord can send someone to do that,” she’d told him, the first time he came in with a bag from the hardware store. “I just have to find his number. I think it’s in the shoebox.”

He shook his head. Sansa was unerringly perfectionistic in her work, and her apartment was neat as a pin, but her organizational methods were baffling to him. “You don’t need to call your landlord, this is good stuff to learn for being a homeowner someday.”

“Not if _you_ do it all.” She was smiling, crossing her arms and leaning against the counter as he started unloading his haul onto it, everything he’d picked up for patching holes and unclogging drains and updating her shower head.

“I-” he didn’t know what to say. That he might not be around to come over? He hoped he would. Did she mean that he’d still be there, living in some home with her, years in the future? He thought of the open house they’d crashed and felt a wave of longing for that life. Some of his thoughts must have shown in his face, though he didn’t say anything out loud, struck too mute by his internal monologue.

“You’re so dumb.” She leaned against him, and they were making out against the counter before he thought to be offended. “Thanks for fixing this stuff,” she added breathlessly, later.

“Good practice for later,” he grunted.

Sansa liked to do things on weekends that baffled Sandor, and he found himself doing all sorts of things he’d never thought he’d do before. She liked to go to antique fairs, farmer’s markets, and garden centers, collecting hanging plants and berries and strange little figurines. Sometimes she met Margaery and some other friends he couldn’t tell apart for nail appointments and a meal they called “brunch” that seemed to be mostly about getting drunk before noon. He liked it all: waking up long enough to see her slip a dress over her lace underwear set and step into a pair of shoes, falling back asleep with Stranger pinning his legs in place, and waking back up once again to a tipsy Sansa crawling onto him for some late-afternoon delight.

He liked hiking the best. Sansa would put on skintight yoga pants that he thought were a hundred times sexier than her shortest dress, and a pair of sneakers that got Stranger jumping around and barking the moment they were pulled out. She called it “light cardio” but to him it was just a walk, surrounded by nature and all its smells and sounds. He’d never been outdoorsy growing up, but being outside was so much sweeter now that he’d spent too much time boxed in. The winds felt good blowing through his hair. Watching Stranger run through trees and around corners was delightful. And everywhere little birds sang, both in the trees and just beside him.

Jon graduated from school a few months later, and the entire family crowded out the back room of a local Italian restaurant. Sandor was hesitant about a second party, pessimistically sure that it couldn’t go so well a second time. 

And yet it did. It was better, even, because he got to wear jeans and focus on someone else. Sansa signed his name to a card, and Sandor felt compelled to pick up a some Belgian tripel to add to her reasonable gift of a new work shirt. After all, he felt he owed Jon everything.

He ended up spending the first half of the party having a mock-fight with Arya in the parking lot, showing her the staging and blocking he’d picked up in his MMA class. It was fun to teach her, and she was determined to land a punch.

“You should come by my class,” he told her finally, before he had to wipe his forehead and go back in for some garlic bread.

“You teach a class?” Arya asked, her pageboy haircut askew, but her eyes bright.

“I will soon,” he ended up promising, before they went back inside.

He kept thinking about it during the party. Sansa sidled up to check on him, feeding him a meatball before she could be encouraged to go back to talking to her family. But Sandor stood on the fringes of conversation, listening with half an ear.

“Let me know if you ever need a laywer, buddy,” Jon was saying, his solemn looks now loosened up by the beer and the food and the presence of family. The restaurant was brick and ivy, lit with low yellow candles and sconces. Sansa’s family were all attractive, and he felt like he was mingling in some magazine spread, where they’d Photoshop out his scars or maybe his entire presence before sending the photos to print.

But he liked Jon, and laughed good-naturedly at his offer. “Thanks, man. I hope not to need one ever again.”

Jon snorted and toasted him. He was glowing with his success, at least in the subtle way that seemed to be Ned all over. And after the toasts had kicked up and wound down, it was Ned who nodded at him from a corner of the room, summoning him as surely as if he’d shouted.

“How you doing, son?” he asked seriously, when Sandor had landed next to him on the wall. From Ned’s vantage point, they could see the entire Stark family, laughing and drinking and passing gossip back and forth. Jon had brought a new fiery girlfriend, who was arguing with Robb about politics in the corner. Robb’s wife Jeyne, who was a local news anchor, had magically had the night off, and was showing off their twins’ new outfits to Catelyn and Sansa. Brann and Rickon were arguing over some sort of handheld video game in the corner, and Arya had taken advantage of the chaos to finish a glass of wine that was abandoned on a table.

Ned sighed, but didn’t move to stop her. Sandor raised his eyebrows, he and he shrugged. “It’s better that she think she’s sneakier than she is.”

“You can tell it’s not your first time raising teens.” Sandor tilted his glass, and Ned met it before they continued drinking in silence.

“Things are going well?” Ned asked finally. Across the room Sansa, half-drunk again, was putting her niece’s tiny foot in her mouth, making the little girl shriek

Sandor nodded. Ned clapped him on the back and waited for a moment before saying anything else. 

“I started my first business right after college,” he said finally, and Sandor turned to him in surprise. “It’s true. It wasn’t ever going to be big, but it was big to me. After that, the corporate life just didn’t feel the same. That’s why I tried again later, and you know that’s been more successful.”

“How did you do it?” Sandor asked, appreciative of Ned’s plain speech.

Ned shrugged. “I worked my ass off. I had a healthy respect for failure. And I had Catelyn by my side. These women, they can handle anything.”

“They really can,” he agreed, thinking of notes hidden in Sansa’s diaries and Catelyn changing years’ worth of diapers. 

“Just let me know if you need any help,” Ned said, and Sandor offered him one of his scar-twisted smiles.

He meant to talk to Sansa about it more the next morning. It had been her idea for him to start his own studio, and the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He knew the stuff, he was willing to do the work, and he was passionate about it. But it would take a lot of effort and money and time, and he needed to make sure she was really on board. Already he’d been socking away the money from every shift, with the exception of dinners and little presents for Sansa and Stranger here and there.

But then they slept in, and Sansa, whose sweet tooth became unhinged after drinking, made them milky coffees and a batch of cinnamon rolls. It was so good to just sit and relax, watching the morning light turn into afternoon light, spying on the people walking on the sidewalk from the window. Then they walked Stranger, taking their time to dip in and out of stores along the street. They looked at colorfully-printed skirts, overpriced organic dog treats, and old-fashioned shaving sets, taking the time to smell every new aftershave. She fell in love with a spicy, piney one, so he picked up a small container.

All things said and done, it was a good morning. He felt like he’d have all the time in the world to talk to her about more serious things later. Maybe they’d hit one of the weekend farmer’s markets she loved so much, pick up some things to make for dinner. They could settle in for a bit then go back out, grab a bottle of wine, get ready for another long, relaxed meal.

They didn’t get the chance. Minutes after they got back in, Sandor was refilling Stranger’s water bowl and Sansa was in the restroom. There was a knock on the door, and Sandor peered through the peephole before opening it.

A man stood there, wearing a suit. Sandor’s stomach dropped — in his world, that was never good. He opened the door, though, and waited.

The man waited too, clearly assuming he was going to say something. Sandor didn’t, instead glowering down at him as politely as he could, waiting for the stranger to explain himself.

“I’m looking for Miss Sansa Stark,” he said finally, seeming annoyed.

“She’s not available,” he said, and shifted to block the man’s view into the apartment. Behind him he could hear a toilet flush: they both could.

“Sir, I saw you both walk in, I’m just here to do my job,” the man said, and something about the exhausted way he said it made Sandor understand.

“Sandor, who’s there?” Sansa asked, coming into the room behind him now. She peered around his shoulder. “Hello!”

“Miss Sansa Stark?” Sandor was able to watch in slow-motion as Sansa realized what was happening. The air in the room had changed. He knew the man wasn’t a threat anymore, but dread filled his stomach as she nodded, slowly. “You are Miss Stark?”

“I am,” she said, voice quieter than he’d ever heard it before.

The man nodded and gave her a sympathetic look before offering a thick manila envelope. “I’m here to provide you with legal documents. Just to be clear, you are being served with a subpoena. You can find all the relevant contact information inside.”

Sansa nodded and took the papers, and Sandor gave the guy a polite nod before slamming the door in his face.

“Sansa?” He turned to her, wanting to touch her, but she was engrossed in the papers she’d pulled from the envelope.

“I have to go back to court,” she whispered, looking up at him. Her eyes had brightened, but were still dry. She swallowed hard, and this time he reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “He’s going to trial.”

“You’re going to be okay,” he swore immediately. “You do so much for the other survivors at work, you can be your own advocate this time. And I’m on your side — we all are.”

“I know.” She smiled up at him, though he could tell she was still on the verge of tears. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he answered, and gave her a kiss. “You’ll be okay, little bird.”

“I know.” She was quiet for a minute, staring down at the harsh black and white words on the paper before her. He didn’t blame her: the dread that the legal system always instilled in him was already building in his gut. But she seemed amused, for some reason, and he waited to hear why. Finally she smiled up at him for real, no threat of tears in her expression. “They told me to bring my diary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I’m blown away by the response to my poll. 40 comments overnight and more since I’ve been writing this poll! I’ll keep track of the votes as I finish up this fic. I love seeing everyone’s taste and opinions, it’s so interesting! Right now we stand at: 
> 
> 1 — 15  
> 2 — 14  
> 3 — 11  
> 4 — 15  
> 5 — 13  
> 6 — 5  
> 7 — 16  
> 8 — 3  
> 9 — 6  
> 10 — 17  
> 11 — 10  
> 12 — 8  
> 13 — 7  
> 14 — 11  
> 15 — 4  
> 16 — 6  
> 17 — 14  
> 18 — 7  
> 19 — 4  
> 20 — 5  
> WRITE THEM ALL — 16
> 
> So the most popular right now is…. #10!! "Sandor is a cop in a small town. Sansa is the only survivor of his worst case yet. When he retires early, she overcomes her PTSD to come to the banquet honoring him."
> 
> But those might not end up winning! You can keep voting until this story is over! All prompts won't fit, but you can find them at the end of chapter 18 or on my blog, https://sayesayes.tumblr.com
> 
> Thanks loves!


	21. Chapter 21

Sansa spent a lot of time at her lawyer’s office from then on. Sandor found himself sleeping back at home a few nights a week as their schedules misaligned, Sansa making her apologies more and more over the phone.

He didn’t mind. He’d pop by just for dinner and head on home, catch her at lunch to walk Stranger together. He could tell she felt guilty, but she’d come home wrung out and exhausted from each meeting, and it was all he could do to convince her to let him leave her a freezer full of frozen pizzas, drop off a cup of coffee.

And in the meantime, he kept busy. He didn’t let on, but he poured all the extra hours into work. Every time she had to review her testimony, consult with her parents, schedule a last-minute appointment with the therapist she’d lost touch with… he worked another shift. And when there were no shifts, he went to the gym, fighting with anyone who was willing to spar. He’d started staying up late, working on a business plan that he kept e-mailing back and forth with Ned.

Both of them were drawing back a little, but only to prepare. Only for the future. The days dropped into weeks and the weeks became almost two months, all the time working and prepping and saving in secret.

And then the trial started.

Sansa’s alarm went off at 5AM, but Sandor was already awake. They’d stayed up late arguing softly, quietly, and he hadn’t been able to sleep afterward.

She didn’t want him to go.

He’d offered, of course. He’d bought a suit. Gotten the day off. He’d helped her stay up late rehearsing answers, holding her as she cried, supporting her as she psyched herself up. But finally she’d asked him not to come. He understood, to a degree, what she was telling him. She wanted her family around her, and she didn’t want to worry about his reaction to what he’d hear. To seeing Joffrey. He also knew it would complicate matters to have Joffrey recognize him, since Sandor’s name hadn’t come up in the trial at all and Sansa’s lawyer recommended they keep him out of the conversation. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Sansa had reluctantly agreed. Bringing up a felonious partner who had beaten up Joffrey in prison could only hurt Sansa’s case. Joffrey’s defense could attack her character, pointing out that she had a pattern of seeking out bad partners. They could question her fidelity, create confusion about whether she’d been dating Sandor at the same time, if she’d set him on Joffrey. And all of that would distract from the black and white of Joffrey versus Sansa.

Sansa flipped off the alarm and stretched in bed, causing Stranger to huff and roll over at her feet. She blinked at him from her nest of blankets and pillows, then held open her arms.

Though they’d spent the night before tense and upset, Sandor crawled right in. She’d never held him before, and she was barely capable of doing it now, her arms barely reaching around the width of his shoulders. But he let her try, clutching her back around her stomach. They lay for a long minute wordlessly, letting the grey early morning begin around them. Sandor kissed her cheek, brushed a kiss against her lips. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she agreed grimly, and released him to sit up. Stranger belly-crawled up to them, and Sansa gave him an ear scratch, her eyes distant already. “Today’s the day.”

“Today’s the day,” he agreed. She’d ironed and set out her outfit the night before, and he got up to collect it from the bathroom for her. The diary was with her lawyer, but she had a packet full of papers that included scans of it. He paged through the papers quickly, ensuring she had everything she needed. It was strange to see the words he’d first fallen in love with, laid out so impersonally. He set the packet back down and brought her the hanger.

While she showered and did her hair and makeup, he made some coffee, putting an extra cup into her travel thermos with milk and sugar already mixed in. He slipped an extra lighter into her purse, straightened a pillow, and caught himself with nothing to do.

He’d drive himself crazy, with nothing to do.

She was ready fast, luckily, and he drove her to the courthouse early to meet with her lawyer and family. They were gathered between two of their parked cars in the lot, huddled in a mass of breakfast sandwiches and brown-and-red hair. Sandor clapped Robb on the shoulder, and returned Catelyn’s hug, but their focus was really on Sansa.

They were telling her the things he’d told her already, the words landing like dull rocks on the ground. There was nothing new to say, really. Just the stories they’d told a hundred times already. Just their personal hell, laid out to be picked over.

Sandor wished he was going in. During the night, unable to sleep, he’d considered going anyway. Surely no one would notice him in the back of the courtroom, and maybe his invisible support could help Sansa in some way. In his fantasies, Joffrey would see him and quake on the stand, Sansa would derisively speak the words that sent him to prison for life, and Sandor fucked her on the judge’s stand to the applause of the audience.

Maybe his mind had wandered a little. But maybe part of his fierce desire to be there went beyond his love for her and went into his own issues with court. He’d been lucky, with his sentencing, but it hadn’t felt like it at the time. He couldn’t listen to that desire to be a victor there, to win a battle between those four official walls.

He had to listen to his love, and let her fight for herself. He knew she could, after all.

Kissing Sansa on the forehead and releasing her to her family hurt. He walked them to the stairs, watching the way the Starks gathered around Sansa as they walked onward and inward. He stayed, standing there, until they’d all disappeared through the doors. Sansa squared her shoulders before he lost sight of her, and didn’t look back.

He ran home. To Sansa’s home. Stranger was there when he got back, waiting at the door for attention, so he took Stranger out and ran again. They ran until they reached Blackwater, ran past the lines of beautiful houses, ran past the lines of raggedy bars. They ran until Stranger was panting around his lolling tongue, and then they ran back home.

Sandor hosed off Stranger, and then himself. It was strange to turn the hose onto himself, see his shirt wet and cling as though in a dream, feel the water’s cool relief come over him. It was like half his mind, half his heart, was somewhere else. And he had no idea how it was going.

He considered calling Bronn, but his mind was starting to race now that he’d slowed again. He had to do something else.

The only place he could think to go, once he’d tried off and changed, was the Stark house. Arya, Bran, and Rickon had been left alone for the day, presumably under the care of Margaery. When he pulled into the drive, though, his was the only car.

“What are you doing here?” Arya asked, having stuck her head out of the front door to see who was there. “We already scared one babysitter away.”

“Because we’re not _babies_ ,” Bran agreed, from behind her.

“I’m not a babysitter,” he growled. “I’ll order a pizza.”

They let him in.

Bran and Arya were clearly a little red-eyed, but he ignored it, since Rickon seemed fine. He was half-on and half-on the couch, deeply involved in some handheld game. Sandor didn’t really understand video games — he’d always been too broke as a kid to get into them, and his hands were far too big now — but Rickon seemed happy enough. He parked next to him on the couch, and Arya settled on the floor near his knees to eat once the pizza arrived.

Bran put on a space documentary, and they watched in silence. After a long night of staying awake and worrying, it was almost reassuring to be around other people who were worried and trapped on the sidelines, too. It _was_ reassuring. Soothing.

Sandor was asleep before he knew it.

He woke up groggy, unsure of where he was. A gorgeous high wood-beam ceiling was above him, and as he blinked, he became aware that he was on an enormous sofa. There was a weight on his thigh — Rickon. He was at the Stark’s house still, stretched out sleeping, and Rickon had passed out on top of him. Arya and Bran were nowhere to be seen, and the room was near dark.

Sandor tilted his head to listen. There was a low rumble of sound from the kitchen, across the hall. Maybe the other kids had gotten hungry again. He eased Rickon to the side, slowly, a little astonished at how heavy he was in sleep.

The voices increased in volume as he got closer, and he pushed open the door to find everyone, Arya and Bran included, gathered around the kitchen island. A few faces turned toward him, but he could only see Sansa.

She stood, surrounded by her family, a glass of wine in her hand. Her eyes were shining and red, her hair loose from the straight-pinned style she’d started out with. She’d slipped off her suit jacket, and from one look at her face, he could see that things were okay.

Sansa half-laughed, half-sobbed, and walked straight into his arms. He clutched her, not a thought in his head about her family watching as he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight.

He couldn’t even ask, and it seemed like she couldn’t speak. He spent one long minute focusing on the strength of her hold on him and the stale-fear scent on her hair, before he rested one cheek atop her head and looked, head horizontal, to Catelyn.

“Joffrey’s appeal was overturned, ” she said quietly, in the silence that had fallen as the adults sipped from their glasses and watched Sansa hold onto Sandor, wiping her eyes now. “Sansa read from her diary on the stand. She did very well.”

“She did incredibly,” Jon put in, fiercely proud. “The jury fucking hated him.”

“I advocated for myself for once,” Sansa murmured, sounding dazed. “And it worked.”

“Of course it did,” he said, and kissed her head. When he looked up, everyone was smiling at them.

"Good job, Starks," Ned said softly, and raised his glass. "You too, Sandor."

Sandor nodded, his throat tight. He gave Sansa a squeeze and took her wine glass from her hand, raising it to toast Ned back. "To Sansa."

"To Sansa!" they roared, lifting their glasses high.

"Why don't I get any wine?" Arya asked.

Sansa laugh-sobbed again, but this time, it was more of a laugh.


	22. Chapter 22

And then one day Sandor woke up and signed two leases.

Sansa had started a support group for her former clients, but opened it up to the public once it grew in popularity, and so she spent one night and one morning a week hosting. She always came back thoughtful and worn out, but pleased and proud and seeming strong. He dropped her off one morning, waved good-bye, and then drove to work to turn in his uniform.

Next was the dealership. That took a few hours of paperwork and donuts and stale coffee. Then a meeting with the real estate agent. Ned met him at the empty building, shaking his hand once he’d peeked through Sandor’s bundle of papers. And that was it. The culmination of years of effort, the turnaround of a lifetime of bad decisions and worse luck.

“Are you ready for this?” Ned asked, as they stood in an empty doorway. They’d taped down circles and squares, marking places for a front desk and an office and the mats they would need. It was still an empty building, only touched by tape, waiting to be swept and painted and built from nothing, waiting for Sandor to roll up his sleeves and start.

“I’m ready,” he said, and asked Ned a question.

When he picked Sansa up, it was in her new car. He had a moment of watching her look around, not recognizing his truck anywhere, and could appreciate from afar again how beautiful she really was. The people in her group flooded out around her, but he didn’t spare a glance for a single one of them. The sweep of her hair over her shoulder as she scanned the parking lot, the shift of her hip when she tugged her bag higher, every simple gesture seemed like a perfect moment. One he wanted to preserve forever.

He honked, and hopped out of the car to lean against the side. She lit up when she saw him, lighting a corresponding flame in his chest that burned higher and brighter than any fire he was afraid of. She nearly ran to him, and he caught her in his arms for a moment, wrapping her up in a tight squeeze despite the people surrounding them.

“Cute car,” she teased, patting the top of the baby blue Beetle. “Did you rob a Care Bear?”

“Nice thing to say about your car,” he answered in a fake huff, delighting in watching her expression change. It was worth every hour of overtime, seeing her delight and confusion morph into one strange expression on her face.

“ _My_ car?” She peered up at his face, and when his grin broke out despite himself, she threw herself back into his arms. “Sandor! What the fuck?”

“Language,” he teased back, picking her up for a kiss.

Her small hand slid up to his cheek, cupping it through the scars, claiming him for the world to see. He ached for her suddenly, but swallowed down the lust to put her gently back on the ground. They smiled at each other for a moment, then he gave her a squeeze and released her. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go where?” She marveled at the car for a moment, stroking it as she walked around it. “Can I drive?”

“It’s your car and I barely fit into it, so you’d better.” He tossed her the keys. “I’ll give you directions on the way.”

She sighed happily and clutched the keys to her chest. “Sandor… thank you. I can’t believe it. I’ll pay you what I can, I promise.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” he said sternly, opening the door for her. “I might be a little too busy to help you get to work, so you’ll need it.”

“Busy?” She slid in beside him and was immediately distracted, patting the dashboard, checking the mirrors, flipping on the radio to make sure that it worked. Pop music blared out, and she beamed at him. “I can’t believe it’s mine.”

“I can’t believe _you’re_ mine,” he agreed, welcoming the kiss that the landed on him before starting the car. “You deserve it.”

“So do you,” she chirped, his pretty little bird, swinging the car onto the freeway. They drove in silence for a moment, listening to the radio as she got used to the car. “I love it so much!” she said finally, reaching out to squeeze his hand quickly. “Where are we going?”

“Take this turnoff,” he said instead of answering, and guided her left and right afterward, right and left again.

He had her park out front, and he watched her poke through the car while he dug out the keys. She checked the trunk, finding the stuff he’d stashed there for walking Stranger, water and baggies and a towel in case he found a spot to swim. There was a picnic basket he’d found at her favorite thrift store, packed with mismatched plates and an old Pendleton blanket. “Why don’t you grab that?” he asked, and she followed him to the door.

“Where is this?” she asked, looking around. They were in a small parking lot, outside a building marked LEASED that was made from brick and banged-up concrete. Across the street, the river hid behind an empty field. It wasn’t quite in town, but it had potential.

He opened the door.

It was deceptively large inside, one huge cavern waiting to be filled. Sandor took the basket from her and lead her in further, opening it to shake out the blanket and lay it on the floor. Sansa, ever a good sport, sat right down.

“It’s my new studio,” he said finally, watching her unpack. She looked up, confused, and then dropped the plate. It was plastic, luckily, and unharmed as she launched herself back at him again. “Whoa, now.” She was kissing his face, covering it entirely so he could hardly breathe. He pulled back, and she tightened her arms around his face until he was laughing, squeezing her back between kisses. “Sansa!”

“I’m sorry,” she laughed, and landed one more kiss onto his ruined cheek. “I’m so proud of you, though! Did you ever think you’d get to this point?”

He shook his head, hands on her forearms to steady her where she was swayed into him, as though each was each other’s center of gravity. To starting a business? Buying his girlfriend a car? _Having_ a girlfriend, one so special as Sansa, who loved him genuinely? “No, I didn’t.” He brushed his knuckle over her cheek, marveling once again at the soft skin, the beating heart beyond.

She smiled, then smirked, and reached for his buckle. He laughed, catching her hand “You are not blowing me in the studio,” he admonished, half-heartedly. She pouted, and his dick twitched. But he’d brought her here for more important things. “No, really. I won’t be able to look the kids in the eye afterward.”

She brightened. “Sandor, the kids are going to love you.” It should have been uncomfortable, there on their knees, but when he reached for her hands she gave them to him, and then it seemed important — kneeling together now, hand-in-hand in an empty building. He hoped the kids would love him. He wanted the practice.

“I hope so,” he confessed, all of his fears and doubts packed into those few words. Ned had approved his business plan, had said yes to every question that Sandor had asked him. But the rest was up to Sansa, up to whatever kids came in the future.

All he could do was be brave.

He slid the ring out of his back pocket – a ring box would have been a dead giveaway — and was gratified to see that it was okay, the modest diamond the last of the purchases he’d just made, each one locking his savings into investments he’d been waiting his whole life to make. Business. Personal. Nothing short of miraculous.

Sansa’s eyes lit on the ring, then slid up to his face, then back to it. Her mouth had dropped open, the pad of her lower lip so kissable that Sandor nearly forgot his line.

“...marry me?” he remembered finally, forcing the words past the knot of fear in his throat. Sometimes he still felt like a prisoner, trapped by his past and forced to live with the worst kind of self-hatred. Sometimes he thought Sansa was someone he’d dreamed up, found in a book and never really earned. 

But then she would smile and kiss him, and this time, before their lips met, she said yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOA so much happening. Next chapter will likely be the last one! Then onto the next fic y'all voted on! All can be found at the bottom of Chapter 18 if you want to vote!
> 
> Also, Takes Its Toll now lives on Amazon as original fiction. Please message me here or [on Tumblr](https://sayesayes.tumblr.com) for your link! Anyone who reviews it gets their own SanSan drabble request!


	23. Chapter 23

The prison walls were the grayest thing he’d ever seen. Endless gray, day in, day out. It was like being in the belly of some horrible animal that had years to chew him up. Every week that went by, every month and every year, they seemed to Sandor that they only got grayer.

But the worst was the loneliness. There was no one to visit him, almost no one to call. Inside everyone was too afraid of him or too wrapped up in prison bullshit for Sandor to get close to. It was the worst part of his sentence – the feeling that he was trapped and alone and abandoned. The feeling that no one would ever come into his life, even after jail, to make him feel less so… and that he wouldn’t deserve anyone who did. It was the kind of loneliness that was all the worse for its threat of stretching on for years and years and years to come.

Except she had.

Sandor woke up slowly, unsure at first about the lines between reality past and present. He was in a warm bed, and yet the gray walls still felt real, as real as the pillow underneath his head. But then he opened his eyes, and there she was. There she was, her flaming hair tousled on the pillow next to him, spilling across her face toward him, one strand stuck to Sandor’s mouth.

For a minute, he just stared.

Sansa. It was hard to believe that this was his life now, a life that had seemed so impossible he had never even imagined that it could be like this. The most beautiful girl in the world, and today she would become his wife.

There was just one problem, And it filled his belly with nerves even as the nightmares faded away – his vows. Sandor hadn’t finished them yet, paralyzed by the feeling that they had to be perfect, that she deserved magical words he could never come up with, some perfect promise to make a life with him as good as it could be. There was no end to the promises he wanted to make her, and he made them with his actions as often as he could, but words had never been Sandor’s gift. He thought he had enough gifts, though. He just had to show his greatest one how much he treasured her.

He snuck regretfully out of bed, pausing only to brush a soft kiss on her forehead. “Love you,” he whispered under his breath, and saw her smile before she stirred.

“Happy wedding day,” she murmured sleepily. “Are you going?”

“Happy wedding day,” he told her, brushing some of that hair back from her freckled forehead. “Just for a bit. I should heck up on work so I don’t have to before we head out tonight.”

She nodded. They were at her parent’s house, sleeping in Sanaa’s old bedroom so she could start the morning with her family, including the out-of-towners. In a few hours the photography, makeup and hair crew would arrive, and then they’d head to the church. They were leaving straight from the wedding for their honeymoon, and Stranger was staying with the Starks, once his ringbearing duties had been completed. He was snoring at Sansa’s feet now, surprisingly innocent for a dog that had eaten the first bow tie they’d tried on him.

“I’ll see you soon,” she yawned. “Come back fast or my grandma will eat all the pancakes.”

He chuckled and went downstairs, but not before pausing to look back into the room for another moment. If the dream had felt real, this felt like a dream. His dog, his girl, his wedding day.

Catelyn was downstairs already, prepping a breakfast feast that did look like it would include her famous pancakes. She glanced up when he entered, and nodded toward the coffee pot. “Just brewed.”

“Thank you,” Sandor said gratefully. He poured himself a cup, and after a questioning look at his future mother-in-law, poured one for Catelyn too. He doctored it up the way she liked and passed it over, and for a moment they sipped in silence, leaning against opposite counters. “Do you need any help?”

She smiled. “I’ve been making breakfast feasts for these people for years, don’t worry,“ she assured him. “You focus on those vows.”

He nearly choked on the coffee. “How did you know I’m not done!”

She actually laughed now, a fragile and tinkling noise like a glass bell. “You’re a man. I remember my own wedding. And I saw how much wadded-up paper you left in the study wastebasket last night.”

“You should be a detective,” he grumbled, though he was smiling now, too. “Any advice?”

She watched him for a second that turned into a long minute, her gaze a physical weight on him. It was a light weight, not unpleasant, but he felt it nonetheless. “You love my daughter,” she said finally. “Just write what you feel. I know you’ll get it right.”

“I’m no speechwriter,” he tried to say, but she shook her head.

“I know you’ll get it right,” she said again, and squeezed his shoulder with one elegant hand before finding him a thermos to go.

He went to the studio first, since he’d told Sansa he would, and didn’t want to be a liar. He had a little office at the back, where he could meet up with the paperwork that it took to run Black Dog MMA. It had become his haven in the way the floor of the prison library never could be, and he did his best work behind its creaky desk (discovered at Sansa’s favorite thrift shop).

Sandor walked through the floor space in the front, which was carpeted with protective blue mats. Bronn and Arya were already there, engaged in a bout which looked surprisingly well-matched.

“Don’t kill the man,“ he joked as he approached, earning himself an eye-roll from each of them. “Shouldn’t you be at the house, Arya?”

“Shouldn’t _you_?” Arya sniped back. “Besides, I told Mom I didn’t want hair and makeup.”

“I just meant so you didn’t miss the pancakes,” he said mildly, and fought back a smile as her surly expression changed into a combination of panic and hunger. 

“I’ll drop you off if we can pick up Margie on the way,” Bronn offered. Arya was his star student, and they rarely missed a workout together, but Sandor knew they’d both regret leaving Catelyn and Margaery waiting today. “Left something on your desk, by the way, Clegane.”

“Good man.” They clasped hands and Bronn left, trailed by Arya, who was already urging him along.

That just left Sandor. He went to the office, where a stack of papers was sitting atop his worn and familiar desk. It was a stack of papers from Bran’s physical therapist, giving her recommendations for what range of motion he could begin with. It had been the first visit of the Stark family that made Sandor realize what more he needed to do in order to offer MMA to everyone interested. The therapist had been incredibly open to conversation with him, and with this stack of recommendations in front of him, he could finally invite Bran to join his sister in class. Maybe they’d tell him at the party later - Sandor had a sneaking suspicion that he’d want to start right away.

It was satisfying to know that it was finally taken care of, but the left one more pressing issue on Sandor’s to do list.

He pulled out a fresh notepad and set to work.

 

“I don’t know how you did it,” he told Sansa later, holding her hands in front of everyone they knew. She was radiant in her vintage lace gown, her hair whisked up and off her Grecian neck, and he could hardly get the words out for her beauty. “It took me a month to write this, but you made me fall in love with you with words you didn’t even know I would be reading. In a lot of ways, I had it easy. From before we even met, you had showed me your heart. I knew you were brave. I knew you were kind. I knew you loved fiercely, generously, and I knew you saw the good in everyone.”

He paused, releasing one of her hands to check his folded-up piece of paper. The guests chuckled, and Sandor smiled good-naturedly in response, but didn’t look away from Sansa’s blue and red-rimmed eyes. She’d cried all through her own vows: half the crowd was crying, too.

“And then I had the privilege, the incredible honor, of meeting you face to face. You’d already changed my life, and I would have been grateful forever for that gift. But meeting you… You went from my favorite book to my favorite person. You split my life into before and after. Your incredible goodness was still there, but there was more to fall for. Your wit. Your spontaneity. The way you get so stubborn that even the legal system has to bow to you. How much you help people, how much you helped me. I didn’t know you would be such a great dog mom. I didn’t know you would come with the family I never knew I needed. And I never in a thousand years -“ he paused again, shocked to find that he, too, was about to start crying.

Sansa smiled, a smile that seemed to come from her soul. She reached into his suit pocket and handed him the handkerchief that Ned had tucked there just hours earlier. He cleared his throat and tried again.

“I never in a thousand years thought that I would be the man who is deserving of a woman like you. A partner like you. I never thought I’d feel forgiven, or truly wanted, or like I was that kind of man. You’ve given me more then a hand in marriage – you’ve given me life. This life. Our life, one that I can’t wait to keep living with you. Forever.”

The crowd cheered for their kiss a few moments later, and Sandor could feel the moment freeze in his memory forever, crystalline. After that there was nothing to do but dance, drink, and accept well-wishes. 

Sam was there, and he brought Sandor a shot of mezcal, giving him a hug afterward that Sandor returned whole-heartedly, only looking around afterward to ensure that no one had seen. Bronn and Margery were there as well, dirty dancing in front of the entire crowd. Of course most of them were Sansa’s people, her family and friends, a collection of girls who Sandor had a hard time telling apart, but was sure he had a lifetime of brunches ahead with. But he did have a few guests. Stranger, of course, and Bronn, but his sister had shown up too. She could only stay for the ceremony before driving out, but she’d promised to return for Christmas some year, and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and that was enough for him. And Elder Brother was there, his parole officer, who had shaken his hand and congratulated him on getting off of parole. On being able to leave the country.

 

It was only a few hours later that they did. He was still buzzing, half-tipsy and totally drunk on happiness, when he and Sansa settled onto the plane. She was wearing a pair of yoga pants and talking about the wedding, who had shown up, who hadn’t, Robb’s speech, the taco truck that had arrived just in time to prolong the last call. They had booked a red eye to sleep on the plane, and they’d be landing in Ireland in fourteen hours. He couldn’t wait to see her, her wild red hair surrounded by green. She had a pack of Nicorette in her purse — but she’d bought a lot of it, and he suspected that she was weaning herself off of her smoking habit. They hadn’t talked about it yet, but now that they were married, he thought it might be fun to try for a baby sometime. Who knew? The future felt wide open.

It felt incredible, really, just sitting beside her as Sansa adjusted her pillow and started debating the merits of ordering a hot chocolate. The plane was making a warm, whirring noise that felt promising, and it was about to go somewhere he’d never imagined going. This whole life was somewhere he’d never imagined going, really — it was more than he’d ever hoped for, even when he’d sat in his cell and tried to imagine a perfect life, a little farther down the line.

Sansa rested her head on his shoulder as the plane started moving, and Sandor felt so, so free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys. Thank you so much. This fandom is a dream come true, I love every single one of you!! I welcome all feedback, comments, questions, ideas, thoughts, you name it.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr and Patreon under sayesayes and ayes, respectively. Message me for a copy of Takes its Toll in PDF form, or find it with new names and a new ending on Amazon (and let me know for a free drabble if you do!). This fic also has a Spotify playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/user/1252977635/playlist/5fTGg9nTta2fvfIVzcwtI0?si=wtHlvwfwSP-WOX69TnfGTw
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